ADDENDUM: Super Burrito forced out.
Apparently Super Burrito will not be downtown anymore. This town is officially Not Worth Saving ANYMORE.
I was reading a piece on MSN this week, "It's still better to buy a home", which has a fairly involved cost analysis of renting vs buying. And I will admit proudly that I am in 100% agreement with the article that it is FAR better to buy.
Yes, it is better to buy than rent. There, I said it.
Well, now that the ugliness is out of the way, let's take a closer look at that piece. Here is a snippet:
I thought about that as I read reader responses to a recent column taking a long-term consumption-smoothing approach to the purchase of a pricey San Diego house. The exercise showed that buying such a house could be beneficial even if real-estate values fell -- provided the buyer lived in the house for a very long time.
So we're going to see a nice, fair analysis of buying vs renting in San Diego, right? Well, read on:
Suppose, for example, that you are a young family thinking about buying a house in Lewisville, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. There, you can find relatively new houses of about 2,000 square feet with three or four bedrooms, two baths and a two-car garage for about $150,000. If you bought such a house with a 20% down payment and a 30-year mortgage at 6%, it would cost $8,634 a year for the mortgage and about $7,500 a year for taxes, insurance and upkeep (based on 5% of market value). The total out-of-pocket cost would be $16,134 a year.
Long term, this would put you way ahead of a renter, even though the same house could probably be rented for about $15,000 a year, or $1,250 a month.
Ah yes, there we are. Ye Olde San Diego McMansion selling for $150K. Oh, how they line the lush boulevards of San Diego... mile after mile of $150K homes. Errr wait. It's Lewisville, TX, outside Dallas, one of the lowest, most undervalued housing markets in the U.S.This sort of bait-N-switch sort of irks me. This is a pretty handpicked market to do a rent vs buy analysis. And there are plently more like this, where buying is still so ridiculously cheap, that buying as a financial strategy swamps renting in some cases. And if you look at the figures used by the author, you can see that even in this handpicked scenario, that buying is not THAT great:
Even if the value of the house doesn't rise, it will compete very well with the return a renter could get on the down payment. The homeowner will pay the mortgage off in 30 years, bringing his equity to $150,000, even with zero appreciation. For the renter, the down payment would have to return 4.22%, after taxes, to accumulate to the $150,000 value of the home after 30 years with zero appreciation.
The renter avoids the 20% down payment incurred by buyers, and has to make 4.22% on that investment to beat owning a house. Robert Schiller has shown that extremely long term returns on stocks are closer to 7%.
So let me restate: Buying IS a great deal, if you happen to buy in one of the most depressed housing markets in the country AND you are an absolutely TERRIBLE investor. For a reality check, let's look at Bend
If you use a $350K home for the 6% mortgage assumptions (no downpayment), and a steady $7,500 maintenance cost per year, and also $1,250/mo rent payment, you come out with a slightly different advantage to renters.
Your year one cost is the $25,181 mortgage payment, plus $7,500 maintenance, or $32,681. The renter pays $15,000. Now the rent & maintenance are assumed to increase with inflation, and hence hold steady in this "real dollar" analysis. But the present value of the mortgage falls by 3%/yr, and has hence fallen to $24,426 by year 2.
By year 10, the owner has spent $295,397, while the renter is out $150K. The renter advantage is a fairly significant $145,397. The situation for the buyer never improves because while the mortgage payments after inflation dip below the $15K the renter is paying (real terms) by year 19, the $7,500 maintenance continues. The PV of the mortgage has to fall, in real terms, below $7,500 before the buyer is ahead. This actually never happens till year 30 when the mortage is paid off.
At that time, the buyer is out $727,775 on a cumulative basis, and the renter is out $450K, with a net advantage of $277,775. But that is as good as it gets for the renter. At that time, since the mortgage is wiped out, all that's left is that pesky $7,500 maintenance payment, while the renter continues paying $15K/year in real terms. So when does the buyer actually move ahead of the renter? 40 years? 50 years? 60 years?
In year 68 the owner actually has a cumulative cost that beats renting by $1,634. Somewhere late in that 67th year of owning, does a buyer well & truly move ahead of our lowly renter.
So I reiterate: If you live in one of the absolute lowest cost housing markets in the country AND you have the investing skills of a chimp, you should probably think about buying. Otherwise, Rent & Invest The Difference. It's as close to a Sure Thing as I've ever seen, especially in Bend.
(An addendum: I should note that I and the author of this story ignore any sort of resale proceeds by owners. The author is attempting to compare the downpayment on a house to the monthly savings a renter accrues and invests. My own comparison is an attempt to see, given zero upfront payments on a realistic Bend home, what are the yearly benefits to renting vs buying, ignoring some fairly substantial costs & benefits such as property taxes and interest write-offs. Think of the cumulative benefit to renting as the amount a renter has to invest to beat out the equity appreciation of a home owner.)
NOW... to shift gears:
I took some whomping over my D-Mark burning pic in last weeks entry. Howls of "IHTBYB thinks we're entering HYPER INFLATION!". Of course, I do not. It was a pure illustration. Hyper inflation typically leads to endless money printing when a sovereign government has kicked your butt. That has not happened here, in Bend at least. No, RE "hyper-inflation" typically leads to the exact opposite, deflation. It goes from money chasing too few goods, to vice versa.
I read an intersting piece on WHAT I DO THINK will happen here in Bend, albeit to a lesser extent, "A Cautionary Housing Tale from Japan". The author, Michael Nystrom, moved to Japan in 1990, almost exactly when the twin RE & stock market bubbles began to deflate.
An excerpt:
My uncle is a salary man (sarariman), on the young side of middle age at the time, married and with two kids. In many ways he was an average Japanese enjoying the fruits of a booming economy. Japan was on the rise. Between 1955 and 1990, land prices in Japan appreciated by 70 times while stocks increased 100 fold! You might remember when it was claimed that the land under the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was worth all of Manhattan, and that the land in Tokyo alone was worth more than all the US.
In spite of the booming economy, my uncle, like many Americans today, was shut out of the housing market. Prices always seemed too high, but a pullback never materialized, so he waited until the right time to buy. While he waited, prices spiraled up and away until at last they were hopelessly out of reach. By the time I arrived in 1990, his family was living in a government-owned, rent controlled flat that was, by any standards, small: Two rooms that were each about 12 feet square, a small kitchen and a tiny bath to serve three adults (including his mother) and his two kids.
And now to the meat of the story that I've found myself telling with increasing frequency of late: My uncle thought that he would never ever be able to afford a house in Japan, and that he would live out his dying days in that little rented flat. In his experience, housing prices went only in one direction: up. But by 1992, two years after the Nikkei peaked, something strange began to happen - housing prices started drifting down. Of course my uncle didn't know that the Nikkei had just put in its all time high, and would ultimately fall by 80% over the next 13 years. Anyone paying attention to the stock market most certainly thought that it was just taking a necessary and well-deserved breather, and that new highs were just around the corner.
By 1994, housing prices continued to drift lower until some units started to become, with considerable stretching and creative financing, affordable. So that year, by taking out a two generation, 60-year mortgage -- with his 16-year old son on the hook for the remaining years that he might not be able to pay -- my uncle bought his first home. The family had to scrimp, and both he and my aunt had to work more hours, but they were finally, proud homeowners. And it was a nice house - larger than their old house (but not much), in a nicer neighborhood, and on a higher floor with a view of the treetops. I even helped them move in. It was a happy day. I don't recall the exact price he paid, but I remember thinking that it sure was a lot! Somewhere north of half a million dollars. Those were the kinds of details were lost on me at that age.
I left Japan in 1994, and didn't return again for a visit until late 1998. In the intervening 4 years, housing prices had continued to fall, and fall, and fall to the point where my uncle's house was worth only half of what he had paid for it four years earlier: A couple hundred thousand, up in smoke, just as Japan's economy was mired in a 13-year slump. But he stuck with his loan, hoping the value will come back. And one day, it just might. So he makes his payments each month faithfully, and when he can no longer make them, his son will take over and pay off the remaining balance. And sometime, in the remaining 48 years on the mortgage, the house may once again be worth more than what is owed on it.
More copy & paste that I intended, but you get the gist. The crux of the rent vs buy example is that with no appreciation over inflation, buying is fairly dicey, financially. Even in low priced markets, the cumulative breakeven is well over a decade. In times of deflation, such as what has been happening in Tokyo for the better part of 17 years, you borrow money to buy assets that are actually worth well below what the liabilities are on them.
This is why Japan has interests rates at almost 0%. Why on Earth would you borrow to buy something that'll be worth less than what you pay? No one does, and hence Japan is mired in a decade + long quasi-recession. Lowering rates to spur demand is the proverbial "pushing on a string".
"Well, IHTBYB, that is Japan, and this is the U.S. That sort of excess doesn't happen here!"
Hmmm... reading some of the reader comments to this article suggests it does:
YOU COULD TELL THE SAME STORY ABOUT MANY PLACES RIGHT HERE IN THE US!
My brother bought a great condo in 1986 in Jersey City. Great view of the stature of liberty and all. The price was somewhere over 160K.
Then came 1987. By early 1988 when my brother had to move due to a job change, his still great condo was worth 60K.
In just over a year, it had lost 100K of its value, 66+% of its value!!!!
He sold it in 2001 for about 110K. 15 years latter, 13 years of renting it at about a break even mark not including his time and effort, and it colored his whole life from late twenties to early forties. This anchor always in the back of his financial mind.
Now some would say had he held it another three years, he would have made money! My first comment is that a million dollars would not have made up for the anguish he lived with for those 13 years. My second comment is that even with the amazing run-up in prices of the last 5 years, he still would have lost money, if you just take standard CPI inflation into account and a lot more if you take real inflation into account.
My wife and I bought a Victorian in need of much work in Boston in 1980 for $52,500. In 1989 it was appraised for $330,000. In 1993, when we wanted to refinance, it was appraised for $160,000. Ouch. So I won’t be surprised if there’s another deep decline in prices.
Another:
I wish I could convince my wife that purchasing housing can be a bad deal. She is absolutely convinced that house prices won’t come down. One of our neighbors bought a house for $208k and after the bank kicked them out it sold for $180k. A neighbor across the street lost a bundle on their house too.
This one is pretty eerie:Not only is what he is saying correct, but the problem goes much further. I am writing this from the West Coast of Florida. Many of the units that were built down here in the last 3-4 years are literal junk. The builders built on any land they could find, suitable or not. Bad drainage, bad neighborhoods, you name it. Even worse, qualified labor was largely unavailable so anyone who happened along was hired. You had unqualified masons, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, roofers etc. As building material costs went up, the builders and their people frequently scrimped. There have been doubts about whether some of these buildings even have the proper number of nails. But wait, you say, weren’t these buildings inspected? Apparently not all of them. A year or so ago a group of disgruntled condo owners sued Pinellas County for its lax inspections. The court dismissed the suit saying that inspections were “optional”. Draw your own conclusions about that. Many of the houses and condos around here may not out last the mortgage. So if you are tempted by falling prices demand, as a condition of sale, a soup to nuts inspection by a qualified consulting engineer whom YOU hire. If you think inspections are expensive, wait until you see the repair estimates for these doozies.
Sound familiar? Read on, and you hear people talking about the horrors of houses listed for ~gasp~ SIX WHOLE MONTHS!
The market here is swamped with houses for sale. They’ve more than tripled in the last 12 months, and many now go begging. The neighborhood we rent in now has a house that has been up for sale for 6 months. 6 months!
Wow, 6 months... how do they survive?
There have been localized busts far & wide in this country. They are usually very localized and a short-term, well-contained collapse happens immediately after... you guessed it, a speculative bubble of building implodes. That's what will happen in Bend, NOT Hyper Inflation.
Japan is an entire country paying off RE loans, where the money is dramatically more valuable than the good which it is paying for. An entire country saddled with bubble-fueled debt, and the near inability to buy anything else because so much of their income has to go to servicing debt. THIS is the aftermath of RE bubbles: Catastrophic wealth loss. Endless crushing debt loads that quash the ability to buy anything else. In essence, mortgage slavery. And the best news?
It all goes on for the rest of your life.
200 comments:
I would still like IHTBYB post his actual opinion on what shitty desert siberian land around Bend is actually worth. I have stated my opinion.
*
I have repeatedly mentioned the fact that crappy little desert land cost 0.06/cents acre.
Traditionally rock-farmers paid $100 an Acre. Thus even at post bust price of $16k/acre this desert crap is still OVER-PRICED.
At the high 5,000 sqft lots were selling in Bend for $300k, and sold to builders who got hosed.
The normal model in Siberia has been to to an acre ( 40k sqft ), divide into eights 5000sqft lots and sell each for $200k, thus take land that costs 0.06cents/acre and sell for $1.6M/acre. Not a bad return.
When I ask the rhetorical question "How low will they go" IHTBYB Said somewhere in the middle. I say NO WAY IN HELL. Somewhere in the middle is $99k/lot, and they're already not selling at that price.
A 50 cents on the dollar is $100k, 20 cents is $40k. I think that is tops, personally I think its going to be a penny on the dollar, which is still a whopping $2k/lot. That's $16k/acre for shitting desert land that you can do NOTHING with unless you have water rights.
The 'middle is MY OPINION' will be somewhere between 20 cents and 1 cent thus $40k - $2k. Given that the traditional price was $100/acre to the rock farmer or $12/lot. That is still a huge gain for worthless desert land.
The middle is $20k/lot. That means the land would be $160k/acre STILL TOO MUCH. The ONLY model that makes sense is penny on the dollar. That the lot will go to $2k and the acre to $16k, this is what it 'MIGHT' fetch in a few years.
I'm not saying this is a good thing or bad thing, this is just sandy desert land with some sage and tumble-weed and an occasional juniper. The fact that the land went from 0.06 cents/acre to $1.6M/acre, and then back to $1k/acre is a good explanation of hyper de-flation.
For those that paid $12M for forty acres, and put $4M into infrastructure, and thus have $16M of OPM. They need to sell at $400k/acre to break even, thus split them into 1/2 acre lots at $200k, still these are only really worth $8k.
I hope the heinous hypocrisy & ANTI-ENVIRONMENTALISM of that mother fucking scumbag Randy Sebastian, is fully noted in todays Bulletin.
Regarding putting up gates that would completely cutoff migration routes for local elk:
Renaissance President Randy Sebastian, meanwhile, said he will proabably file an appeal of his own because he still wants the gate.
Elliott ruled that gating Renaissance's new community would diminish the public benefit of the trail system and natural land that the developer is promising to leave open along the river and around a cinder cone.
But other neighborhoods in River Rim, including one less than 100 feet from Renaissance's site, have gates and fences, Sebastian said, and "gates help sell houses in Bend."
"To me, it comes down to an issue of fairness," Sebastian said. "I want to do what someone else was allowed to do."
So much for that scumbag mother fuckers enviro-friendly go-kart giveaway, and his bullshit talk about building green. This is all well & good until it threatens to take away ONE MOTHER FUCKIN' CENT from this Hypocritical Bastard.
I hope that fuck sticks subdiv's rot in hell.
Hi I'm a single mother in LA Pine. I have six children all of different fathers.
I'm trying to decide whether its better to rent or buy in Bend. I'm concerned with my kids education down here in LA Pine.
I have studied the 'craigslist' and it seems that rentals in Bend are very cheap. I qualify for many affordable housing programs, thus I would very much like to build equity in a home, rather than throw away rent checks.
Could someone in this group advise me on programs in Bend to assist mothers such as myself in Bend? I'm very familiar with LA-Pine welfare office. I don't have a car, currently I'm renting a single wide mobile in LA-Pine.
My goal is to get a job in Bend, and buy a cottage in Northwest Crossing's.
I would appreciate any assistance possible.
Regarding the closure of the 'Grove' downtown and the transition of downtown ...
Downtown is now officially for the Broken Top / Pronghorn / Widgi Creek golf community – and as nice as many of them are, ...
***
We have paid good money to get the riff-raff out of downtown Bend. Soon downtown will be a golfers paradise and Drake Park will have a 18 hole course. Fenced and gated of course.
I have heard the widgi,pronghorn,broken-top golfers called many things in Bend, but nice? The beautiful people that run Bend are cigar chomping, rush limbaugh listening lard arses. If it wasn't for golf-carts they would be completely immobile.
It's odd that Bend is marketed towards world class recreation, but in fact is Golf and Martini leisure world for Republicans.
Its most satisfying to know that the same PR firm that runs bend 'DVA' also runs Bandon-Oregon, another golf-paradise paid for by the tax payer. DVA can sell the public anything, anywhere but normally its golf.
Fine let's move all the clubs out to East of 27th ave, and drive all over eastern-oregon for music. Why not make a stand and demand 'affordable venues' downtown?? The condo-ho's have made the demand and the city is going along, the golfers get all they want.
Even the middle age conservative lard-arse golfers like to be around hip young people when they're all driven from old downtown, what will there really be left??
Another 'high-tech' company leaves Bend. All is going to plan, soon Bend will only have service jobs once again.
Tech firm Chemica leaving Bend for Beaverton
By Anna Sowa / The Bulletin
Published: July 23. 2007 5:00AM PST
Bend-based Chemica Technologies Inc. plans to leave Bend for Beaverton by the end of the summer, company officials said last week.
Besides the new location, nothing else will change for the company that researches and develops medical and pharmaceutical products such as drugs to fight in vitro strains of drug-resistant tuberculosis, said Executive Director Andrea Adamson.
"Chemica is simply relocating within the state of Oregon for reasons of proximity to business partners and better cost/opportunity advantages," Adamson wrote in an e-mail. "There will be no layoffs resulting from this move."
Chemica offers research and development services, Adamson said, and specializes in chemical syntheses. Chemica works with private pharmaceutical and engineering industries and academic institutions.
The biotech firm was first established in Bend in 1992 and has nine employees. Two are already in the Portland area and the other seven will relocate to the Portland/Beaverton region.
Adamson said the company is moving because Chemica has developed relationships with a number of entities in or near Portland, including universities.
"Our new location was selected based on a combination of proximity, cost and opportunity," she said. Chemica employs tech workers and scientists.
Roger Lee, executive director of Economic Development for Central Oregon, had heard rumors that Chemica would leave Bend. Lee said Central Oregon has struggled to attract highly technical companies and keep those high-paying firms in the area long term. Sometimes, companies are pulled away by capital or their desire for resources available in larger metropolitan areas, he said.
"We never like to lose companies," Lee said. "The challenge for our area is we don't have a huge resource of training for these (highly skilled workers in the science and technology fields) - they have to be imported from out of the area."
That's one reason EDCO and other business representatives hope to see a four-year university developed at the city-owned Juniper Ridge site in north Bend.
Yesterdays 'Source' announces that IHTBYB is the ONLY source of news in Bend. Think of the RE brokers and MTG folk as Sauron, the evil eye. Right now its on the 'old media', next week it will be on the bloggers.
Realtors Shooting the Messenger
Written by The EYE
Sunday, 22 July 2007
The Wandering Eye doesn’t feel warm and fuzzy toward The Other Paper in town very often, but John Costa’s column in today’s Perspective section elicited a pang of sympathy.
Costa relates how the local real estate community is giving his paper flak over its supposedly too-negative coverage of the ongoing slump in the Bend housing market.
One broker, according to Costa, sent along an article written by the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors blaming the media for the nationwide real estate slowdown: “ … to a great extent, we can thank steady media coverage of the real estate market ‘correction’ for unfounded consumer concerns.”
The broker then went on to blame The Bulletin for local real estate woes, writing that “we … take issue with the constant barrage of negative publicity concerning the real estate market. … The Bulletin constantly hammers us editorially, week in, week out.”
By “hammering,” evidently, this guy means “reporting the facts.” Blaming the messenger is a familiar pattern, and not just in the real estate racket – consider, for example, people who claim we would be winning in Iraq if only the damn media would stop reporting the bad news.
If anything, The Bulletin has gone out of its way to paint a rosy picture of the Bend real estate market and promote the late, lamented boom of 2004-2006. Costa himself says as much:
“I have looked back over the last few years of real estate stories in the newspaper, and what I found was a continuous string of highly positive and flattering stories leading up to the peak of the boom here.”
In fact there are plenty of people in town (see IHateToBurstYourBubble’s blog) who believe The Bulletin had a big role in pumping up the speculative bubble that drove Bend home prices to insane levels, and was late in recognizing that the air was starting to whoosh out of it. If you derived as much revenue from real estate ads as The Bulletin does, would you go out of your way to piss off your best customers?
Hi I'm a single mother in LA Pine. I have six children all of different fathers.
Sweet this sounds right up Bendbust's alley, hopefully they are illegals and you are a fat senorita because he just love Mexicans; however, if you are plain PWT forget it because he is too refined for your ways he like to bike and walk drunk around the westside of Bend not drive like they do down in LA Pines.
According to Bendbust-a-nut you should have no problem getting a home in NWX and start a taco biz out of the garage but when that doesn't work out you can sit around all day with him getting fat and stoned in his double wide.
Renaissance's site, have gates and fences, Sebastian said, and "gates help sell houses in Bend."
Bend ONLY exists to sell worthless desert land to tourists.
The Tourists come to Bend because they hear there are NO mexicans or blacks, thus all the rich that come to Bend are racists.
They know that there will be a Mexican inbound migration in the next 5-20 years, and thus ONLY gated community's will sell. Who is the real asshole? Sebastian, or the folks who make the demands? Sebastian is actually performing perfect capitalism, giving the market exactly what it wants.
Just a few months ago some red-necks broke the gate down up at Highlands@BrokenTop and did $25K in damage in one hour with a little jeep. Without gates these incidents would be nightly. The locals ARE PISSED that there old hunting drinking areas within 5miles of down are getting closed by gates.
The Tourist Rich think that everything is 'under control' here, this is why the dogs are NO longer seen near the river. The ENTIRE image of Bend is ... There are NO red-necks, no latinos, and NO blacks. Bend is a SandPt-Idaho version of Aspen.
The city of Bend has done everything it can to keep the red-necks out of downtown, the latinos, ... Thus the RE sells.
Most of the Siberian desert homes are ALL second homes, they would be destroyed by locals if there were NOT gates, thus the FASTEST growing job in Bend in be rent-a-cops, its already that way at Pronghorn, Broken-Top, .... ALL the HOA's go to security.
Welcome to the NEW BEND Oregon.
A place where every retarded white person is a king. Just like its sister city in Sand Point Idaho.
Bend Builders are now fighting over the last way to make a buck in Bend. Building homes for the homeless using Federal HUD dollars. It's will be years before LA bambino's come to Bend to rescue our RE industry, until then let's build for the homeless. Today
A place for people to call home
By Cyndy Cook / Bulletin guest columnist
Published: July 23. 2007 5:00AM PST
You know these people: someone who works two jobs so his wife and special-needs son can get health benefits ... a single mom employed full time in retail living paycheck to paycheck ... a family in crisis because a breadwinner was injured ... a mentally disabled adult on a fixed income.
These are the people who qualify for affordable housing in Central Oregon.Thirty years ago, a volunteer community board with an entrepreneurial spirit was appointed by Deschutes and Jefferson county commissioners with a simple mission: Find ways to provide safe havens for those without stable housing. Today, that board has become Housing Works, the largest affordable housing provider east of the Cascades. We are a highly successful development company with a $60 million portfolio, with 75 percent of that raised through private equity. What have we accomplished?
• New construction — and new paradigms
Winning funding for today’s lower-income housing communities isn’t easy. Organizations must compete for funds by marshalling teams of private investors, builders, nonprofits, local officials, and state and federal housing agencies. Only the highest-quality housing proposals win. Over the years, we’ve brought 620 units of affordable housing to Central Oregon. Many projects — such as Eastlake Village and Horizon House in Bend, Tamarack Village in Sisters — have been nationally recognized for design, building quality and livability.
• Financial clout
Ten years ago, Housing Works was banking land, thinking ahead to the time when it would be needed for new projects. We’ve successfully leveraged that collateral into new housing, a revolving loan fund to assist clients with mortgage down payments and rehabilitation of tired rental properties into housing to be proud of.
• Family Self-Sufficiency program
We’ve provided access to job training, personal finance education, asset-building programs and goal-setting support for nearly 300 people, to help their efforts to achieve economic independence. Of the 108 FSS graduates since 1995, 97 percent have released all public assistance, and 40 percent have become homeowners.
• Innovative paths to homeowner-ship
Our HomeQuest program offers several purchasing options to first-time homebuyers earning up to 120 percent of area median income. It permits those who qualify to apply their rental assistance money toward mortgages or to access mortgage funding for market rate homes, homes made available through grants, or homes offered through a land-lease, shared appreciation program through Housing Works.
• Housing policy initiatives
We have been actively engaged in supporting local and state ordinances and legislation aimed at keeping the costs of building new affordable housing low, creating new housing and making it possible to preserve what we already have.
• More help for renters
Housing Works assists more than 1,000 lower-income renters in the region, distributing more than $5 million annually to local landlords. Recently, we garnered a $427,000 supplemental allocation from HUD to fund more Housing Choice Vouchers, which allow local renters to choose apartments in the private market. With average rental assistance running $425 per month, this could help as many as 200 additional families this year.
As we enter our fourth decade of service, we have new initiatives. One is to set the final piece in place in creating a housing continuum from homelessness to homeownership for lower-income Central Oregonians. We are working with Bethlehem Inn to create a model community for the homeless, where vulnerable individuals and families have a place to start getting back on their feet.
Housing Works will continue supporting government policies friendly to affordable housing. We support Sen. Gordon Smith’s proposed federal bill to waive exit taxes for low-income housing, tax credit-funded developments. This would reduce the capital needed for organizations such as Housing Works to exercise their options to acquire such properties and keep them affordable.
And perhaps most importantly, we’ll be working tirelessly to build community support for more work-force housing such as Lava Court, the first urban, mixed-use affordable housing in Central Oregon, now under construction. Central Oregon has a well-known shortage of affordable housing. Restaurant and retail workers, cops and firefighters, teachers and construction workers, the disabled, the elderly, single-parent families — these are the people having trouble finding decent living situations. As housing costs rise, they’re being forced to look further and further from downtown cores for safe, quality, affordable housing.These folks don’t want handouts. They want opportunities and some assurance of long-term housing. They make great neighbors — and so do our award-winning communities.
Sage Classic today at Deschutes Brewpub
Today is the Big one. Mike Fish conservative brewer of Bend, Oregon. Every year puts on the Sage Classic. All year Bend metrosexuals shave for the event.
Led by Bend's own BendBB. The guys wear Bikinis and parade up down the street in front of the Deschutes Brew Pub. Street closures are expected at noon today.
Bend's own Metro-Sexual Blogger Brigage spends the entire year removing all body hair for this event.
To quote Bend's own Bulletin "It's quite a sight to see dozens of over weight middle age white guys strut there stuff in Bikinis in July".
Until recently since prices skyrocketed, most people did not think of their home in terms of investment returns.
When I bought, I just wanted a place to call my own that I could put heart and soul into (I find that harder to do with a rental property).
The "return on investment" criteria as the only value in owning a home is severely flawed. You could apply the same criteria to vehicles. There is negative return of investment on vehicles, but that does not stop people from buying expensive ones.
>>That's one reason EDCO and other business representatives hope to see a four-year university developed at the city-owned Juniper Ridge site in north Bend.
No, no, no. Remember how it goes. North Carolina shows the way. First, you need three 100-year old respected universities within a short drive of each other. Then, you work hard for 50 years to establish the triangle within as a worthy spot for hundreds of businesses to come to--some of them (like SAS Institute) among the most desirable places to work in America. You make your state business friendly and line up all your priorities toward bringing and keeping jobs and business investment.
It's EASY. With a lot of money, and a lot of foresight and GOOD planning, there's no reason we can't have our own successful Research Triangle in Central Oregon within 150 years.
--TT
With a lot of money, and a lot of foresight and GOOD planning, there's no reason we can't have our own successful Research Triangle in Central Oregon within 150 years.
--TT
We're Bend, We're Exceptional, We're an affordable ASPEN! What better place to send your child to college and found a high tech business.
What's most noteworthy about those destined to spend other peoples money to build building's out in the remote desert is they themselves largely didn't even go to college themselves.
Ten's of millions of municipal bond debt doesn't make a high-tech incubator. It takes a legacy institution.
This is where Les Schwab Institute of Tire Re-Treading is important. In a fifty years Bend will be known for synthetic tires made for auto's during the post peak-oil phase of America. People will be asking why did Bend invest in a Re-Tread University knowing that the automobile was to become shortly extinct?
The academic world has not laughed so hard since the City of Bend announced 'The Shire'.
Bend is only about building at taxpayer expense. If and when the taxpayer finally awakens and says NO MORE, then and only then will the charade cease.
Holy Shit Batman Redmond and Prineville are going to start charging builders the actual cost for sewage, rather than passing it on to the existing users.
Could this be a sign that City-Hall finally realizes that there is NO perpetual free lunch???
Now let's see if the Condo Whores let Abernethy do something like this in Bend.
How about MAKING Les Schwab pay ALL their sewage costs, rather than passing it to the City of Bend homeowners??
Growth spurs look at raising impact fees
Higher development charges would boost area housing costs, critics say
By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 23. 2007 5:00AM PST
When Prineville announced it might double its sewer system development charges last month, builders, developers and residents turned up at a City Council meeting to protest the move.
Raising the impact fees more than 100 percent, from $4,089 to $8,677 per single-family house, would make Prineville’s SDC rates the highest in Central Oregon and could negatively impact an already cooling housing market, several speakers said.
Eventually, the City Council decided to raise the sewer SDCs to $6,508 and phase in the rest of the charge in the next few years.
While Prineville may be experiencing a moment in the spotlight as the latest target of builders’ ire, it’s unlikely to hold that title for long. Redmond is also looking at doubling all of its SDC fees in the next few years in order to serve a rapidly growing population, according to the city’s public works director.
“All in all, the cost of growth is just becoming expensive, and we’re seeing that some of the other cities are adjusting their plans and coming up with higher SDCs,” Redmond Public Works Director Chris Doty said.
“Ours have not been updated since 2005, but this latest update will certainly bring them into current times with respect to the cost of construction and the number of projects that we’re anticipating to serve the new UGB expansion.”
Changing charges
SDC fees, which cities levy on new construction to pay for expanding municipal infrastructure, are a perennial topic of debate among Central Oregon’s developers, real estate agents, city planners and City Council members. But the charges — which homebuyers see in higher housing prices — fluctuate from city to city and are calculated in a variety of ways.
A state statute in 1989 set up the framework for SDCs, which can only be used to build new systems or increase capacity in an existing system, and can be levied for water, wastewater, stormwater, transportation, and parks and recreation. Since then, all of the largest incorporated cities in Central Oregon — Bend, Redmond, Prineville, Madras and Sisters — have implemented the fees.
Bend’s total fees are currently the highest in the region, at $13,440 for a new single-family house. With its recent increase, Prineville — traditionally thought of as a spot for lower housing prices — ranks second, at $13,142, for a single-family house. Redmond, which has a comparatively low rate of $7,908 per single-family residence, would jump into first place if it decides to double all of its fees.
“I don’t think (Redmond’s SDCs) have been significantly lower — I think they’ve been a little lower,” Doty said. “We’re just about ready to publicize new master plans that will reflect new projects and new project costs, so we all leapfrog each other as we update our various master plans.”
Determining SDC rates
Doty and Prineville City Manager Robb Corbett said cities determine SDC rates by making detailed master plans and creating lists of the projects needed to meet projected growth. Then planners figure out the cost of those projects and when they need to be on line.
“They’re definitely not arbitrary; they definitely differ from community to community depending upon the projects that are required, and so they’re very site specific,” Doty said. “For every dollar in SDCs that we receive, each dollar is broken up into dozens of projects that are on all of our capital improvement plans. It pays for just its incremental share of each to serve the whole system.”
Corbett added that some of the projects Prineville has identified as needing SDC dollars include expanding the wastewater system and making some road improvements.
“You identify specific projects that address failures in your transportation system because of all these people that have moved here, and then the cost of those projects are divided by the number of people or (equivalent dwelling units) that are going to be coming, and that’s how you come up with the rate,” Corbett said. “It’s more complicated than that — there’s more variables that go into it — but essentially that’s it.”
Most cities in Central Oregon base their rates on equivalent dwelling units, or the impact that one single-family house can be expected to have on the water, sewer, road and parks systems. But Sisters recently changed its formula to reflect the difference between a large house and a smaller one in terms of water and sewer use.
Planning and Community Development Director Brian Rankin said the city “decided it was the most equitable approach.”
“We just recently changed our methodologies from a flat fee to the fixture-unit approach, and the fixture-unit approach allows for a finer tuning of the development charge,” Rankin said. “A smaller house with fewer fixtures would have a lower system development charge than a bigger house with more fixture units, or a restaurant with, say, larger commercial washers (and) more sinks would be charged more than a small restaurant with, let’s just say, a takeout.”
Sisters’ overall fees are now about $9,389 for the average house. Madras, meanwhile, is the only city in the region that also charges a stormwater system development charge. Its total SDC rate is $9,841 per single-family residence, according to the city planning department.
Most people feel the effect of SDCs through higher housing prices — developers say they pass the costs along to buyers. But new commercial structures can face hefty fees.
Figuring out how many single-family houses, or equivalent dwelling units, are equal to one supermarket, for example, is a complicated process. Rankin said water and sewer charges for businesses in Sisters will be based on how many fixtures are included in their plans and a follow-up inspection to make sure that many were actually installed. But other cities have varied methods for determining how much of an impact businesses and factories have on local infrastructure.
Prineville’s SDC resolution spells out how to convert different structures into the equivalent of one single-family residence. Each unit in a multi-family house or mobile home park is equal to 80 percent of a single-family home. Motels and hotels are half a home for each room. A gas station with a convenience store is equivalent to two single-family residences.
When a developer applies for a building permit, the building department would take those figures and multiply them by the SDC charges, which are based on a single-family house. Most cities have a system for reimbursing developers if they decide to go ahead and build new roads or other systems using private money.
In Redmond, the transportation SDCs are based on the average number of afternoon rush-hour trips generated by each new building. A single-family house is equal to one trip, for an SDC charge of $2,877. But a park and ride lot with bus service would have to pay 43.75 times that base rate for every acre it covers. A movie theater, on the other hand, would be charged based on the number of seats it has, with each seat being equivalent to 14 percent of the SDC for a single-family home.
“How we calculate the p.m. peak-hour trips is based on studies that have been done and published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (in Washington, D.C.), so they know what a single-family dwelling unit generates in the peak hour versus an apartment unit or a condo unit, versus a 5,000-square-foot office building or a McDonald’s,” Doty said.
The development perspective
The varying SDC rates throughout the region can have a big impact on where developers choose to build, some local builders and economic development experts said.
“Some commercial projects are paying upward of $80,000 to $100,000 in SDCs, and if you can go to Redmond and do it for $40,000 and save some money, that’s a significant savings,” said Andy High, director of government affairs for the Central Oregon Builders Association. “(It’s) definitely considered in where you’re locating, especially as you try to compete with the land prices the way they are right now.”
And at a time when Central Oregon and the rest of the country are experiencing a widespread slump in the housing market, higher SDCs or home prices could have more of an impact on buyers.
“You’re starting to see somewhat of a breaking point in the prices throughout Central Oregon — there’s a lot of inventory ... and we’re starting to see reductions in home prices,” High said. “SDCs do drive up the cost of housing across the board. Even if you build a bunch of new homes around an existing home and all those new homes sell for $300,000, it’s likely that that older home will sell for right around $300,000 as well.”
High pointed out that if homes are not selling and builders are not starting new projects, cities won’t see any income from SDCs.
While the system may not be perfect, planners and developers said they understand the need for “growth to pay for itself” — a common slogan in the SDC debate. Corbett, the Prineville city manager, said SDCs put the burden of the new systems needed because of growth on new residents in the community.
“Personally, I think that if a developer is looking out for the long-term interests of the community, I think that they would want to know that the city has a funding structure in place to ensure that the infrastructure is going to be there when they need it,” he said. “The alternative to SDCs is that all the ratepayers share in the cost of expanding the system, and that’s really kind of a difficult position for any elected body to be in — arguing that the (existing residents) ought to pay for growth.”
Roger Lee, executive director of Economic Development for Central Oregon, a nonprofit organization that promotes local economic growth, said SDC rates may be steadily increasing in Central Oregon, but they are still low enough to attract new businesses and homeowners from nearby states.
“We have so many companies and individuals locating here from larger areas ... In California, for example, they have something called impact fees and sometimes impact fees down there for residential can be in excess of $50,000 to $100,000 before they start building,” Lee said. “I think they look up here and think it’s pretty affordable, (but) if you go to the Midwest, they haven’t heard of this and look at some of those things and think it’s highway robbery.”
There is negative return of investment on vehicles, but that does not stop people from buying expensive ones.
*
There is a negative return of investing in Bend Real estate. Your point is??
There were just 6,000 jack-asses in Bend this weekend with 'expensive' RV's, ...
There has always been an unlimited supply of morons and easy money.
Bend Oregon is proof of this.
Tomorrow the expensive cars and rv's will be worth penny's on the dollar. Fuel is going to skyrocket.
The dollar is falling like a rock.
As for the "miracle in the desert" that Bend is trying to achieve, what should be looked at are all the failed wanna-be research incubators. When you look at them all closely, Bend's looks a lot more like the failed ones than the successful ones.
Just 2 1/2 hours away is Eugene's Riverfront Research Park. It was supposed to be a pretty high-tech campus for new and established tech businesses. They started with a local game company in 1600 Mill Race as an anchor company to get it going. A building was ALMOST built for that company's expansion at 1700 Mill Race, but the anchor company soon folded, and the "research park" filled up with University types and a few small businesses.
Check out the master plan and you'll see that after 10 years, only a couple of the planned buildings have been built, due to lack of demand.
http://researchpark.uoregon.edu/plan.html
And that's next to an already-established University, although one I would rate as "meh."
Portland OGI ( Oregon Graduate Institute ) is now twenty years old.
It's so pathetic that OHSU recently took it over.
I remember twenty years ago day one instead of getting good profs, they got trash with phd's from PSU.
Kids literally walked out of class and resigned from the program.
Oregon education is ONLY about patronage. Central Oregon education is only about construction and enrichment of national firms at local expense.
There will never be a real high-tech incubator in Oregon until its ran by on out of state entrepreneur that is a billionaire and uses his contacts. That person doesn't exist, and thus ALL talk about there every being such a institution in Oregon is BULLSHIT.
Eugene's Riverfront Research Park. It was supposed to be a pretty high-tech campus for new and established tech businesses.
*
Eugene was only about two things ten years ago to high tech,
1.) cheap water for dilution is the solution to pollution,
2.) cheap white trash people, low wage bunny suits
What happened is the industry discovered they could get people and water even cheaper abroad, thus its game over.
There is a negative return of investing in Bend Real estate. Your point is?
Most people don't buy a house for investment return. Just as people don't buy cars thinking about investment return.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in agreement Bend is in bubble and prices are too high.
I'm just saying I don't know ANYONE who bought a house to live in who was trying to figure out if they would make more on it as an investment than the stock market does. That's just not the reason MOST people buy a home. Not to mention you can't use loans (leverage) to buy 300K worth of stock.
You may not know anyone who thinks like that, but I know a lot of people who have used the "I don't invest in the stock market because it's risky. I only invest in Real Estate" line on me, which I think is an absolutely ridiculous way to think. It's the all-eggs-in-one-basket problem.
You don't know anybody who invests in stocks with leverage?
Then you never heard of a margin call, have you?
You need to get out more, meet some new people.
"...which I think is an absolutely ridiculous way to think. It's the all-eggs-in-one-basket problem."
----------------
Yes, diversification is the only way to go.... except for Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton and almost every other Billionaire! When their stock went IPO, they did NOT sell off a portion of their portfolio for diversification. Bill Gate's MSFT stock was worth $900M after the IPO in the mid-80s. And he 'let it ride' until it went up 50x. If he diversified (into the Dow 30, trading at what, 5000-6000), he would have doubled his money over 30 years. Wow!
Instead, Bill left it consolidated all in MSFT, and caught a 50 bagger.... with all his eggs in on basket.
Paul Allen DID diversify.
But, anyway, you're talking about business owners. I'm talking about people who just don't know what the hell they are doing, and are just comfortable that they are in the favored current fad.
People who are "all into" RE now are just like people who were "all into" tech stocks.
Instead, Bill left it consolidated all in MSFT, and caught a 50 bagger.... with all his eggs in on basket.
*
Your best investment is always your self. Bill Gates knew this, believed in himself, and invested in himself.
He and Paul Allen from the very start always intended to rule an industry. A hundred years ago men of this caliber were common.
Note, that white trash playing the lottery in Bend Oregon on RE is not even close to this game. No comparison.
Great fortunes have been made on Real Estate, but generally the seed was made elsewhere, .e.g. the men had learned the value of the dollar.
The folks that tried to flip 0.06cents/ac land in Bend into $1.6M/ac are just plain old con artists a dime a dozen through out history.
Saturday night I parked my trailer up at Broken-Top for the weekend din-din. As you know it was $275/per-person for finger food, and bad wine. That's why most of the time folks were in MY trailer drinking Rothschild, but that is another story, I posted this a few days ago, note the below is from the Willy-Week in PDX, nada poop from ya-all, or the shit media of Bend.
The food this year was average, tapa's like finger food, thank god for the Subway back at the trailer. The wine of course sucked like it always does, the thing is if they didn't server two-buck chuck, then it would be $2750/per person.
Fundraising, Latte Art and Tempura Fried Bacon in Bend Oregon
July 21st 2007 9:42pm
Gorging the rich seems to be the perfect formula in fund-raising, and the Sagebrush Classic in Bend is Oregon's ultimate fundraising feast. Who can resist 18 celebrity chefs from four continents, preparing 18 courses to feed a hungry mass of 1,300 well-heeled Central Oregonians? Neither myself nor my carload of Portland-based food writers, who have been engaging the art of absolute gluttony for the past 24 hours, could resist a weekend binge in sunny Bend.
Other than the event's big dinner, which hasn't happened yet, I didn't expect to impressed by the Bend culinary world. I was wrong.
San Francisco-based chef Jody Denton participated in the Sagebrush Classic for years and liked Central Oregon so much he moved to Bend. The 2002 opening of his restaurant and wine bar Merenda (900 NW Wall) was a turning point in Bend cuisine, which according to a Bend resident, was formerly defined by burritos, buffalo wings and chain restaurants.
His recent offering, Deep (821 NW Wall), doesn't feel like it belongs in Central Oregon at all. This Modern Japanese-influenced eatery feels straight out of of New York City. With dark Brazilian wood and white tile finishes, plus offerings like perfectly taut house-made udon in oxtail broth, Kobe beef gyoza and tempura fried bacon (that's right) ,Deep has become a favorite of Bend's super-fit mid-40s demographic—and me. That's not all.
Kent Chapple opened Thump Coffee (25 NW Minnesota) in February on a side street in Downtown Bend, and the cozy place serves up Stumptown complete with latte art as well executed as most places in Portland. Bend is bumping.
Tonight is the big Sagebrush Classic event: 1,300 diners, 18 chefs, many courses, a live band flown in from San Francisco and many drunken Diamond-studded, suntanned members Bend's Nouveau Riche. I'll have a full report tomorrow by noon.
There is a thread over on BendBB, called "OIKOS SALE", and there is some pretty moronic veiled threats about "outting" commenters. From "Appalled":
Because of the supposed "confidentiality" of those who post comments on a blog, I think there is a sense of being above the law and removed from the chance of any consequences. Be careful what you post. The comments posted by this guest accuse not only Norma, but the buyers, Pahlisch homes and the appraiser of bank fraud. That's a federal offense and not something to be taken likely. Notes can not be "torn up" after closing. Better hope that nothing comes of your inflamatory and inaccurate comments. It may turn out that your anonymity isn't as protected as you think.
This is standard fair, from some fuckwad RE bubble sympathizer dumbshit trying to intimidate people into reflating the bubble by suppressing the opposition, or some crazy ass shit.
So far, this is just dumb. Then BendBB (the moderator) posts this:
This is a bulletin board, not a blog, and protections for bloggers may not apply to people who post on bulletin boards.
What the hell does that mean? If you read this BendBB, go ahead & leave a comment. It makes me wonder what your state of mind is regarding the sharing of info regarding commenters. Seriously, it's a bit unnerving & I encourage you to clarify, what exactly this means.
So no one is unclear on what commenters can leave here, or any info being harvested, it is "anything" and "none" respectively. I don't know a single commenter here, none. I'd like to keep it that way, for both our sakes. I do not have access to any IP info that I know of, nor do I want it, nor have I sought it out, nor will I.
This thing is 100% anonymous, and will stay that way. If I could access some sort of IP or "personal" info, I wouldn't, and if I knew it existed, I would attempt to wipe it out.
I know BendBB can ban IP's on his site, which is sort of freaky, but I do hope he'll clarify his disposition towards the data, and whether he can be "outted" publically, and if he was, what is his disposition about sharing IP data.
I suppose Google could "out" me if they really wanted to, but I doubt they would... they'd have a real PR nightmare. But if for some reason they did, and some RE scumbag 3rd party lawyer/Realtor demanded something out of me, to the extent that I knew, I'd tell 'em to go piss up a fuckin' rope... scumbag motherfuckers.
So here's the Privacy Policy to all litigious Realtors & other bubble sympathizers:
FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKERS!
It's the all-eggs-in-one-basket problem."
*
This is a lame ass debate, but lets quote the maestro.
"Put ALL your eggs in one basket and watch them like a hawk."
That said Rule #1 is to buy low and sell high, since the subject here is Bend RE, anybody that bought anything after 1999, is complete pathetic loser that bought high. Game over YOU LOSE.
This is a bulletin board, not a blog, and protections for bloggers may not apply to people who post on bulletin boards.
What the hell does that mean? If you read this BendBB, go ahead & leave a comment.
I have long stated that BendBB is a CUNT from hell working for the dark-side, he has been collecting IP's forever to be used in a pending lawsuit to squelch the royal opposition
Using anonymous tools like google are national and anonymous, using private bulletin-boards like bendbb allows the moderator, in this case bendbb to collect and collate all information about YOU the poster, ... There is NO doubt that BENDBB is an evil cunt, but this is NOT new information.
I know BendBB can ban IP's on his site, which is sort of freaky, but I do hope he'll clarify his disposition towards the data, and whether he can be "outted" publically, and if he was, what is his disposition about sharing IP data.
BendBB has long been outing individuals posting. Long ago I presented myself as a realtor and demanded to know from Bendbb who had posted a particular quote. Bendbb promptly returned to me the IP and the all personal information of the poster.
It's been long clear to all but the mentally retarded that the BendBB site is a Trojan horse for un-sophisticated computer users.
The 2002 opening of his restaurant and wine bar Merenda (900 NW Wall) was a turning point in Bend cuisine, which according to a Bend resident, was formerly defined by burritos, buffalo wings and chain restaurants.
Yeah, it's this sort of snooty-ass stuckup crap that personifies exactly why this town has gone straight into the shitter. I LOVE burritos & buffalo wings!
I will never, EVER set foot in deep. Not cuz it's bad, but it's snooty, snotty, overpriced uppity bullshit food.
"according to a Bend resident"... yeah, right. Who was it ya lying sack-A crap?
This is thinly veiled contempt for true "locals".. ie rednecks. What is it with these self-loathing media dumbshits? They assume that Olde Bend had absolutely No Redeeming Aspects, and all measures should be taken to educate their palette.
Listen up you Californicated Cognoscenti Bitches:
GO HOME. Why did you come here, if all you wanted to do was blow the indigenous locals out the corn chute so you could swarm this motherfucker like the locusts you are? Go Back. Seriously, go back & fuck up California some more. Your "assholeness" ain't going to get left behind when you pack the moving truck, OK? Yeah, you brought it with you, stupid bitch. So why don't you pack your shit & go... you'll quickly grow accustomed to the asshole locust motherfuckers like yourself when you cross the border. So just go BACK. Native Oregonians & "Normals" from the rest of the U.S. do not want you.. well, maybe some cracker ass New Yorkers do.
When I came here, I adapted, just like if I moved to Mexico, I would expect to learn the language & have my kids learn the language, and pay taxes (hint, hint). If you're going to stay, ADAPT. Don't expect people here to become like you... no one here wants to be a bloodthirsty insect cannibal mindless fuckstick. OK, we're fine as is. GO HOME.
Most people don't buy a house for investment return.
This blogsite is about bend, and bend is about 30%/year appreciation. Nobody ever bought a house in Bend for any reason but to get rich quick.
I thought we had moved on from this primitive concept of buying bend RE as a home, and were now only focusing on the subject of the decline of the bubble?
The comments posted by this guest accuse not only Norma, but the buyers, Pahlisch homes and the appraiser of bank fraud. That's a federal offense and not something to be taken likely.
*
This kind of stuff is fairly common. All we know is what got recorded, not what the bank saw. Certainly folks need to keep up the appraisals. Back in Feb2007 50% of all deals were NOT appraising.
What better way to fix appraisals than to have fancy deal's where you buy for $500k, but your Realtor gives you a reverse commission check of $200k, thus the bank and appraiser see's a $500k sale, but the actual COST to buyer is only $300k. Everybody makes out.
This stuff has been going on for years, why is it news now? Problem is the ONLY public record is the $500k, to know what the 'JOHN' actually paid you would have to talk to them, often if its a partial that is recorded, but generally for a token one-dollar the buyer can get the realtor to release the $200k note after the sale, the recording office does this kind of stuff everyday.
Given that SHIT must sell, and $300k is better than nothing, but we can't have the comps go down, or that median, my precious. Thus we do the fancy and show the sale at $500k the buyer pays $300k, and the appraiser gets to use the $500k comp for another deal next door, ... Everybody makes out, and best of all the Median doesn't go down hill!
Is any of this news in this town??
NO
Your "assholeness" ain't going to get left behind when you pack the moving truck, OK?
My brother is a Californicated Skank dumbass, and he knows it. Before he finally moved to Cali, he'd periodically move every few years. He never knew why, but it was perfectly clear that he was such an asshole that within a year or two, every human within a 6 county radius wanted to kill his jiggly ass.
Finally he moved to Cali and is happy as a hog in shit. Because he is in his element: surrounded by mindless dumbfucks who love to cannibalize each other.
Of course, he is miserable, but that's just him. He'll never be happy cuz he's a psychotic whack job selfish turd. But Cali is as good as it gets for people like that. Selfish ass bastards that feed on human misery. Lawyers love Cali.
So I don't say go back just to get rid of self-centered locust motherfuckers, it's really for your own good. You belong there. You won't be happy, but you won't be happy anywhere. But at least there's a far lower chance of a Bend local jammin' an ice pick through the back of your fuckin' skull.
Go Back, you'll be happy with your own kind -- greedy ass lunatics who feed on misery & suffering. Ya fuckers. And take a few of these sleazy-ass Realtors with you. There are a few decent ones that could actually make a living.
That's a federal offense and not something to be taken likely.
*
It's all recorded, but you got to be quick, and no what to look for.
Fraud requires secrecy. These deals are quite common. The bank is only loaning $300k, the appraiser can claim mea-culpa, as he simply uses the gross figure. The RE company looks like a CHAMP because they can show to the next GIMP that they got a full price $500k offer on the house. Everybody wins.
Lastly, this is the reason that RIGHT NOW only 25% of all deals are appraising, because SMART banks are on this this shit, but this is another story.
CALIS - Go Back, you'll be happy with your own kind -- greedy ass lunatics who feed on misery & suffering. Ya fuckers. And take a few of these sleazy-ass Realtors with you.
*
IHTBYB you haven't been into the ol high-octane ale tonight?
What better way to fix appraisals than to have fancy deal's where you buy for $500k, but your Realtor gives you a reverse commission check of $200k, thus the bank and appraiser see's a $500k sale, but the actual COST to buyer is only $300k.
I'm OK (sorta) with these lyin' ass bitches pulling the old cup-N-ball bullshit to prop up the market. Like you say, Been Goin' On Forever.
What irks me is the bastard having the gall to threaten me for outting their fraud-ridden asses. Lying ass hypocritical motherfuckers! FUCK YOU!
I apologize for those of the feminine gland, but shameless hypocrisy just make Paul-doh go crazy. And cuss out hypocritical lying fucknuts who should shoot themselves.
Bitches.
IHTBYB you haven't been into the ol high-octane ale tonight?
No... maybe that the problem! Paul-doh in mess'a PUCKERS over hypocritical liars who threaten Paul-doh. Paul-doh should hit the sauce... but it's almost time for bed.
Maybe Paul-doh go to bed, and have dreams about suffocating lawyer.
Gorging the rich seems to be the perfect formula in fund-raising, and the Sagebrush Classic in Bend is Oregon's ultimate fundraising feast.
*
For those that ONLY read the BULL or SOURCE, the SageBrush Classic is a $275 food orgy put on every year by Broken Top Golf, Inc.
It's really just about making connections, and if that is your biz, then its a write-off.
http://www.sagebrush.org/
2007 Sagebrush Classic - July 20 & 21
The Sagebrush Classic, one of the Northwest and Central Oregon's premier culinary and golf events, is set for Friday and Saturday, July 20-21 at Broken Top Club.
On Saturday, July 21, you are invited to meet twenty national and international celebrity chefs who will prepare the gourmet Classic Feast extravaganza to please even the most discriminating palate. Quench your thirst with ales and lagers courtesy of Deschutes Brewery, and sip cuisine-friendly wines hosted by Mt. Hood Beverage Company. Practice your dance moves to the music of Encore, one of San Francisco's top show bands.
18-hole best ball competition features 52 foursomes battling it out for top honors and cash prizes in net and gross categories.
The 2006 Sagebrush Classic hosted 1,300 guests who enjoyed themselves immensely and bid on over one hundred upscale silent auction lots. Thanks to their support, we were able to distribute $250,000 to nineteen nonprofit organizations serving children and families in Deschutes County and Central Oregon.
Don't miss out on The Party of the Year! Register now for sponsorship, patron tables, and golf teams.
For more information about the Sagebrush Classic, please contact Executive Director, Judy Anderson, at 800-601-8123 or email at sagebrushclassic@comcast.net
Renaissance's site, have gates and fences, Sebastian said, and "gates help sell houses in Bend."
Bend ONLY exists to sell worthless desert land to tourists.
The Tourists come to Bend because they hear there are NO mexicans or blacks, thus all the rich that come to Bend are racists.
They know that there will be a Mexican inbound migration in the next 5-20 years, and thus ONLY gated community's will sell. Who is the real asshole? Sebastian, or the folks who make the demands? Sebastian is actually performing perfect capitalism, giving the market exactly what it wants.
Just a few months ago some red-necks broke the gate down up at Highlands@BrokenTop and did $25K in damage in one hour with a little jeep. Without gates these incidents would be nightly. The locals ARE PISSED that there old hunting drinking areas within 5miles of down are getting closed by gates.
The Tourist Rich think that everything is 'under control' here, this is why the dogs are NO longer seen near the river. The ENTIRE image of Bend is ... There are NO red-necks, no latinos, and NO blacks. Bend is a SandPt-Idaho version of Aspen.
The city of Bend has done everything it can to keep the red-necks out of downtown, the latinos, ... Thus the RE sells.
Most of the Siberian desert homes are ALL second homes, they would be destroyed by locals if there were NOT gates, thus the FASTEST growing job in Bend in be rent-a-cops, its already that way at Pronghorn, Broken-Top, .... ALL the HOA's go to security.
Welcome to the NEW BEND Oregon.
A place where every retarded white person is a king. Just like its sister city in Sand Point Idaho.
Bendbust wrote:
BendBB has long been outing individuals posting. Long ago I presented myself as a realtor and demanded to know from Bendbb who had posted a particular quote. Bendbb promptly returned to me the IP and the all personal information of the poster.
Ho, ho, ho, that's a funny one!
I haven't given anyone any IP addresses from the Bend Economy Bulletin Board and I don't intend to. What I have done is ban Bendbust's IP address for repeated violations of the bulletin board rules, which may be why he's mad at me.
-- Bendbb
What I have done is ban Bendbust's IP address
Right.. that's your perogative.
But I'm wondering where the IP's are kept? Is it within your power to delete them? How are they linked to posts?
It sounds like you're saying there is some sort of data privacy diff between say this blog & BendBB. I just wonder what they are, and what is your personal disposition towards the data?
The way you worded that statement makes me a little nervous. Sounds like commenters ~may~ have something to worry about if you are, say, approached by the authorities, which that dumbass brought up as a possibility.
I, and I'm sure many others, post & comment anonymously to avoid exactly this sort of "outting".
I know more about you, than you know about yourself.
Ho, ho, ho, that's a funny one!
-- Bendbb
I'm wondering where the IP's are kept? Is it within your power to delete them? How are they linked to posts? - dumb mba
*
Dear Dmba,
When you operate a private bulletin-board like bendbb, its just a software program. It has a list of IP's you can ban, the list is permanent, otherwise you couldn't maintain and enforce the list.
All these private bulletin-board programs keep logs forever of ALL information. To suggest that bendbb is too stupid to use his own program is disingenuous as he has already proven he knows how to use the program. It's YOU that doesn't understand what is going on.
Paul-doh in mess'a PUCKERS over hypocritical liars who threaten Paul-doh.
*
As the man said, if your raising there HAIR you must be doing your job, that said if you cannot stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Sage Classic today at Deschutes Brewpub
Today is the Big one. Mike Fish conservative brewer of Bend, Oregon. Every year puts on the Sage Classic. All year Bend metrosexuals shave for the event.
Led by Bend's own BendBB. The guys wear Bikinis and parade up down the street in front of the Deschutes Brew Pub. Street closures are expected at noon today.
Bend's own Metro-Sexual Blogger Brigage spends the entire year removing all body hair for this event.
To quote Bend's own Bulletin "It's quite a sight to see dozens of over weight middle age white guys strut there stuff in Bikinis in July".
But I'm wondering where the IP's are kept? Is it within your power to delete them? How are they linked to posts?
IP addresses are stored with posts in the phpBB database. No it isn't within my power to delete them.
It sounds like you're saying there is some sort of data privacy diff between say this blog & BendBB. I just wonder what they are, and what is your personal disposition towards the data?
If a pissed-off reader of this blog took you to court you could claim you're a journalist and you might win because there's precedent for that claim. I'm not aware of any precedent that allows bulletin board posters to claim protection as journalists. My personal disposition is that private information (IP address, email address) stored in the phpBB database should remain private.
The way you worded that statement makes me a little nervous. Sounds like commenters ~may~ have something to worry about if you are, say, approached by the authorities, which that dumbass brought up as a possibility.
If the authorities want to approach someone, my guess is it's more likely they would approach the ISP rather than me because that's the way it has been done in the past. If I'm approached by the authorities I'll give them Bendbust's IP address and home address ;-)
I, and I'm sure many others, post & comment anonymously to avoid exactly this sort of "outting".
Posting anonymously doesn't protect you on the Internet. There is no true anonymity -- all Web users are being tracked whether they know it or not.
-- Bendbb
When you operate a private bulletin-board like bendbb, its just a software program. It has a list of IP's you can ban, the list is permanent, otherwise you couldn't maintain and enforce the list.
Dude, believe me... I know what IP protocols are about. I just wonder who the host is? Running a whois on informe.com yields practically nothing. I would know little if any about what server ENV variables Google let's bloggers see, except I am one, and it looks to be none (I've never really checked... and won't).
I'm just wondering what BendBB's intentions are about this data, given his statement. He & I have gone round & round a few times, but I'm not trying to push his buttons here: I actually want to know.
I, perhaps naively, assumed this data was in a "vault". But BendBB seems to be intimating that data gathered during posting, commenting & the like is "free game", if he is approached to relinquish it.
I simply want to know his disposition toward the server variables being gathered? Will they EVER be relinquished for any reason? Are they ever destroyed? When? Has any info including IP info EVER been given to ANYONE, EVER? If so, who & why?
I feel like posters & commenters have the right to know this. That's why I posted my "FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKERS!" privacy policy about giving up any data, were I ever in a position to do so, something I would actively avoid. I think people have the right to know what'll happen to their comments, what's being recorded and who has been told, and why.
My simple answer regarding this blog is NOTHING is being recorded, and FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKERS if you're even thinking of asking.
There is no true anonymity -- all Web users are being tracked whether they know it or not.
Well.... I know the guys who got their fingers on the "rm -R *.log" button, and fingering IP's is just a memory away if they want to delete it.
It CAN be tracked, but it DOES require cooperation. Is BendBB hosted by someone else, or is it your server? If it's not, where are these people? Do you have shell access to blow away the logs? Is it Win or Unix?
"rm -R *" is pretty much nuking the data on a Unix box... I know of no real way of getting it back, although some crazy-ass CIA blackhat bitches probably could. But they ain't gonna get their panties in a bunch over some blogging crap. Windows, on the other hand, being a piece of shit, leaves data all over the place like shit on Grampa's ass.
I can't believe you can't go in and run an UPDATE that sets all IP data to NULL? It's probably mySQL... just go blow it away. cronjob the thing.
Well, that's what I would do. It's your show. I'll just say, it makes me nervous to post "unpleasantries" knowing my IP is up for grabs if a lawyer comes calling...
Is BendBB hosted by someone else, or is it your server? If it's not, where are these people? Do you have shell access to blow away the logs? Is it Win or Unix?
It's hosted at www.informe.com, a provider of free phpBB hosting. I don't know anything about these people other than what's on their website. I don't have shell access, all I have is phpBB access. I don't know if it's Windows or Unix, but if I had to guess I'd say Unix.
-- Bendbb
oh no, apts are rising, now it makes sense to buy a converted apt to condo before its too late.
Apartment rents rising in Central Oregon
July 23, 2007 08:17 PM
Apartment rents rising in Central Oregon
Renters are feeling sqeeze as apartment rents go up around Central Oregon
Renters are feeling sqeeze as apartment rents go up around Central Oregon
Some apartments becoming condos
By Makayla Zurn, KTVZ.com
A new study says West Coast residents are paying more and more for rent, and that's the case in Central Oregon.
Throughout the West, renters are facing the biggest increases in years. A new survey by www.realfacts.com says more people are leasing units amid a strong job market and weak home-buying market.
Brigitte Trowbridge, manager of Aspen Ridge Court Apartments, said, "In the bigger cities and on the coast where the jobs are, the rents go up tremendously, and that's happening here in Bend. A lot of jobs have become available so there are more people."
Don't look for an exception east of the cascades. Here in Central Oregon, prices are going up. In the past year, several local apartment complexes have raised rent by nearly $100 a month.
Some managers say this is due in part to supply and demand.
"We get so many people coming here from out of state," said Trowbridge. "Everyone wants to live in Bend. They have jobs here."
Many apartment complexes are raising rent, but some are turning into condominiums. That gives residents a difficult choice.
Local renter Corwin Scott said,"If rent goes up $100, I may be looking for a new place or a better job, because I won't be able to afford living here."
As of June, the average apartment rent had climbed by at least 5 percent in Washington, Oregon and California.
Those moving from out of state aren't feeling the pinch. Compared to cities like San Francisco and Seattle, Central Oregon still seems pretty reasonable.
bendbb tech data
FAQ
.
Portal registration problems
.
* I have registered a new portal named "myportal", but when I reach www.myportal.informe.com, there is nothing to display.
Use myportal.informe.com link instead.
* I’m trying to visit my portal, but I see "Community Portal Not Confirmed" message.
Our application sends confirmation letter to you after portal creating. This letter contains a link for portal activation. Use it to activate your portal.
* I haven’t received any confirmation letters. Please send me this email again.
You can request a new one from this address: http://www.informe.com/index_original.php?view=Reactivate&zz=1
.
Portal Management
.
* I am not need in some portal sections. Is it possible to switch them off?
Yes, it is possible:
o Go to Admin Panel
o Select “Miscellaneous” section in sidebar
o Click ”Site role selection” link
o Click “disable” link for all unnecessary portal sections
* Can I change Informe.com forum style to another?
Yes, you can:
o Go to Admin Panel
o Select phpBB -> General -> Configuration in sidebar
o Change Default Style (select the style you like)
* How can I delete my forum?
We believe you will be satisfied with our services and will never decide to delete your forum, but if you will please use THIS link to create your request.
.
Forum HowTo
.
* How To Create A New Forum And Category
To make a new category:
o Enter the Admin CP by clicking the link at the bottom of your forums index page.
o Go to "Management" under "Forum Admin"
o Select "Create New Category" button.
o Enter the name of the category you wish to create in the box at the left of the button.
o Press "Create New Category" button.
To make a new forum:
o Enter the Admin CP by clicking the link at the bottom of your forums index page.
o Go to "Management" under "Forum Admin"
o Select the category you want to add this forum too.
o Enter the name of the forum you want to create in the corresponding category box to the category you have selected in your mind.
o Press the "Create New Forum" button.
Forum Options in Detail:
o Forum Name: The name that will be displayed on the main forum index.
o Description: The text that will appear on the main forum index underneath the forum title.
o Category: The category that this forum will be added to.
o Forum Status:
Unlocked= Posting Allowed
Locked = Posting Not Allowed
o Pruning: This option allows you to choose whether the board should automatically delete old posts with some periodicity or not.
* How to stop Guest's From Posting?
To stop Guest's From Posting:
o Log into you Admin CP
o Go to "Permissions" under "Forum Admin"
o Select the forum you wish to use
o Click "Advance Mode"
o On post and reply, click REG
o Then submit your choice
This will stop the guest's from posting and replying to the forum selected. If you would like to do that to all of your forums it's better to close the forums access just when creating .
* How To Ban a User?
To ban a user:
o Enter the Admin CP by clicking the link at the bottom of your forums index page.
o Go to "Ban Control" under "User Admin"
Now, you have three options:
o Ban one or more specific users - Use this to ban someone by username.
o Ban one or more IP addresses or host names - Use this if unwanted user continues to register with different usernames. Find the user's IP address and enter it into the box. You can find the IP address by going to user's post and pressing the "IP" button.
o Ban one or more email addresses - Use this to ban all the users registering with the certain e-mail.
* How to add a member to a group?
First, have one or more groups created to use. Consult the "Adding User Groups" topic for instructions on setting these up. To allow members to apply for a group you should make that group "open" in it's settings. Then we recommend you create a topic about your various groups telling members how to apply. Here are the instructions:
o Click "User groups" at the top of your forum. You should see the list of open user groups displayed.
o Select a group that interests you and click "View Information" button next to that group. The new page will show you the users in that group and give you the option to apply.
Alternatively, you could set yourself as the group moderator via the group set-up in your Admin Control Panel. Then just head to your group in the User groups section of your board, and you should see the options to open/close/hide the group from members and assign members to that group.
* How to set user group/user Moderator
To set user group Moderator:
o Enter the Admin CP by clicking the link at the bottom of your forums index page.
o Go to "Permissions" under "Group Admin"
o Select the user group you would like to make a MOD
o Select "Look Up Group"
o Under the column "Moderator Status" select "Is Moderator" in the drop-down box
o Press "Submit"
To make a user Moderator:
o Enter the Admin CP by clicking the link at the bottom of your forums index page.
o Go to "Permissions" under "User Admin"
o Enter the username of a person you would like to appoint to be a MOD
o Select "Look Up User"
o Under the column "Moderator Status" select "Is Moderator" in the drop-down box
o Press "Submit"
* How to edit the user VIA the Admin CP?
To edit the user VIA the Admin CP:
o Enter the Admin CP by clicking the link at the bottom of your forums index page.
o Go to "Management" under "User Admin"
o Select the username of a person you would like to edit
o Select "Look Up User"
o All the options available to edit on that user are listed there. Change the points you want.
o Press "Submit"
* How to make regular user your forum administrator?
To make a user Administrator:
o Enter the Admin CP by clicking the link at the bottom of your forums index page.
o Go to "Management" under "User Admin"
o Select the user you want to make administrator
o Scroll down to the bottom and find "Rank Title"
o Change it to "Site Admin"
OR
o Go to "Permissions" under "User Admin"
o Select the user you want to make administrator
o Change the "User Level" to "Administrator"
MAKE SURE YOU TRUST THE PERSON YOU ARE MAKING ADMINISTRATOR AS HE CAN DEMOTE YOU TO A REGULAR USER.
* How to add User Account Activation feature?
To add User Account Activation feature:
o Log into the Admin CP
o Go to "Configurations" under "General Admin"
o Select "Enable account activation"
There you will see "None", "User", or "Admin". The activation should be done by a person you choose either user or admin. The user - via the activation link in the mail and the admin - manually.
* How To Delete a user?
To delete a user:
o Go to "Management" under "User Admin"
o Enter the username and select "Look up user"
o Scroll down to "Special admin-only fields"
o Check the box "Delete This User"
o Press "Submit"
* How can I limit my forum access to registered users only?
Domain Name: INFORME.COM
Registrar: INTERCOSMOS MEDIA GROUP, INC. D/B/A DIRECTNIC.COM
Whois Server: whois.directnic.com
Referral URL: http://www.directnic.com
Name Server: NS1.INFORME.COM
Name Server: NS2.INFORME.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Updated Date: 03-nov-2006
Creation Date: 26-sep-2000
Expiration Date: 26-sep-2007
We request you retain the full copyright notice below including the link to www.phpbb.com.
This not only gives respect to the large amount of time given freely by the developers
but also helps build interest, traffic and use of phpBB 2.0. If you cannot (for good
reason) retain the full copyright we request you at least leave in place the
Powered by phpBB line, with phpBB linked to www.phpbb.com. If you refuse
to include even this then support on our forums may be affected.
type="text/javascript" document.write("img src='http://66.29.38.208/log.jsp?siteid=81&rand=" + Math.round(100000 * Math.random())
bendbb site does log all use to this IP, you can see this by going to the bendeconomy.informe.com and looking at the home page as source
IP address location & IP address info:
IP address: 66.29.38.208
IP country: United States
IP address state: New Jersey
IP address city: Westfield
IP latitude: 40.653400
IP longitude: -74.346298
ISP: Net Access Corporation
Organization: Net Access Corporation
Host of IP: web18.floatingdaisey.net
Local Time: 2007-07-24 08:35
bendbb using informe.com gives the admin FULL control of all statistics and gathering forever. Note there is NO obligation for privacy or anything on this site, its free, and basically its a trojan horse.
Features
Informe.com portal is a set of following applications:
* phpBB 2.0.22
* MediaWiki 1.10.1
* Wordpress 2.2.1
* Pligg 9.6 Beta
.
Portal features
.
* Instant activation
* No Popup Banners
* Unlimited bandwidth
* 99.9 % Uptime Guaranteed
* 24/7 Support Forum
* No limit on number of post, space, members, or size.
* No installation because we install it for you
* Third-level domains for your portal: http://yourportal.informe.com.
* Portals directory with search
* Portals ranking
* Search by tags
* Unified authentication engine
* Administration panel
* Statistics reports
.
Additional phpBB features
.
* 32 color schemes
* Over 19 languages
* Custom META tags
* Search engine optimization
* Portal page
* Blogs for registered forum users
Request new feature
.
Ok, informe.com is a front for NAC, which has their policy below, NOTE they keep all info forever, and everytime you even touch or use bendeconomy.informe.com and log is sent to them ( see bottom of home source ). Note, EVEN reading the bendbb site all your information about you is transmitted to a bunch of good-fellas in New Jersey.
NAC uses this information internally to analyze trends and to aid in spotting abuse of service or criminal activity. These logs are not shared with any third party or marketing concern, but may be provided to law enforcement agencies in situations where NAC deems it justifiable and/or legally necessary.
Net Access Corporation Privacy Policy
Net Access Corporation firmly supports everyone's right to personal privacy. At the same time, we need to collect certain information from our customers in order to provide quality service. Our privacy policy explains the ways in which we collect, use and safeguard your personal information.
Since Internet technology is always changing, and government regulations may alter in response, Net Access's policies and procedures are also subject to change without notice. Any changes made to our privacy policy will be listed on this page. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully.
1. Collecting Information
When you sign up for our services, NAC will ask you for certain account information, such as your name, address, phone number, credit card information, and security password. NAC will use this information to maintain contact with customers, and for billing and collection purposes.
In the course of providing service to our customers, we constantly collect, transmit and store information and communications that may be deemed private or sensitive.
Personal information transmitted by customers over our service, such as email, may be temporarily stored on our servers for use of our customers. NAC does not collect or archive such information for its own use.
In the normal course of providing service, NAC maintains log files of aggregate internet activity. NAC uses this information internally to analyze trends and to aid in spotting abuse of service or criminal activity. These logs are not shared with any third party or marketing concern, but may be provided to law enforcement agencies in situations where NAC deems it justifiable and/or legally necessary.
2. Our Use of Your Information
NAC uses customer information to contact customers regarding their service, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems and enforce NAC's Terms of Service. Ways in which we use this information include:
1. System Activities: To create a unique user account, we will use some or all of your personal information.
2. Billing: To properly bill your account, we will use some or all of your personal information.
3. Information to our Clients: From time to time, we may use the information you provide to us to notify you by telephone, e-mail or regular mail about service issues or new service offerings.
4. Email: We use return email addresses, or the email address you provide, to answer the email we receive. Such addresses are not used for any other purpose and are not shared with outside parties.
5. System-usage: We use non-identifying and aggregate information to better develop our services. All such information is aggregated information, and in no way can be used to identify you as an individual.
NAC disclaims any intention to censor, edit or engage in ongoing review or surveillance of communications stored on or transmitted through its facilities by customers or others. NAC will, however, review, delete or block access to communications that may harm NAC, its customers or third parties. The grounds on which NAC may take such action include, but are not limited to, actual or potential violations of NAC's Acceptable Use Policy or Terms of Service .
3. Our Disclosure of Your Information
NAC will NEVER divulge your email address to marketing companies or spammers for any reason. NAC will NEVER sell, barter, or otherwise give away your email address for commercial purposes. We respect you as a human being and as a customer, we support your right to privacy, and we do not support senders of unsolicited commercial email (spam).
All personal information - including and similar to your name, address, telephone number, account activities and e-mail address - provided by you will be kept confidential. It will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of NAC or its authorized partners (who must have an equivalent privacy policy). No one, including NAC staff members, will be allowed to read or examine the information contained in electronic mail of users unless under direct court order or with permission from users to do so. Files will be removed by the system operators without affecting the privacy of users. Any unclaimed material will be destroyed without inspection of the content.
NAC will not disclose its customers' personal and account information unless NAC has reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, make contact with, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing harm or interfering with the rights or property of Net Access, its customers, or others, or where NAC has a good faith belief that the law requires such disclosure.
NAC also will not, except for reasons stated below, disclose to third parties the contents of any electronic mail or other electronic communications that NAC stores or transmits for its customers. The circumstances under which NAC will disclose such electronic customer communications are when:
1. It is necessary in order to provide service to the customer;
2. It is necessary to protect the legitimate interests of NAC and its customers;
3. It is required to cooperate with interception orders, warrants, or other legal processes that NAC determines in its sole discretion to be valid and enforceable; and
4. It is necessary to provide to a law enforcement agency when the contents are inadvertently obtained by NAC and appear to pertain to the commission of a crime.
4. Data Security
NAC will protect the confidentiality of customer information, account information and personal communications to the fullest extent possible and consistent with the law and the legitimate interests of NAC, its customers, partners and employees. NAC has industry-standard security measures in place to protect and prevent the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under its control. While "perfect security" does not exist on the Internet, our technical experts at NAC work hard to ensure your secure use of our services. We make every effort to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, but we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third-parties from illegally obtaining this information.
5. Third Party Collection of Information
Our policy only addresses the use and disclosure of information we collect from you. To the extent that you disclose your information to other parties on our system or other sites throughout the Internet, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the personal information you disclose to them. We encourage you to be cautious when disclosing personal information to others over the Internet.
At some web sites, you can purchase products and services or register to receive materials, such as a catalog or new product and service updates. In many cases, you may be asked to provide contact information, such as your name, address, email address, phone number, and credit/debit card information. If you complete an order for someone else, such as an online gift order sent directly to a recipient, you may be asked to provide information about the recipient, such as the recipient’s name, address, and phone number. NAC has no control over third-party web sites and their use of any personal information you provide when placing such an order. Please exercise care when doing so.
6. NAC’s Commitment to Children's Privacy
Protecting children’s privacy is especially important to us. It is our policy to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 and other applicable laws. NAC does not attempt to ask or collect information from any person under the age of 18.
For further information about tips, tools, age-appropriate or child-friendly Web sites and how to report online trouble, please visit http://www.getnetwise.org.
NAC recommends that children ask a parent for permission before sending any personal information anywhere using the Internet.
7. Changes
NAC reserves the right to revise, amend, or modify this Privacy Policy and our other policies and agreements at any time and in any manner. Any changes, revisions, alterations or modifications of this Privacy Policy will appear on this webpage: www.nac.net/privacy.asp.
8. Contact Us
Well, that's what I would do. It's your show. I'll just say, it makes me nervous to post "unpleasantries" knowing my IP is up for grabs if a lawyer comes calling...
Anybody that visits bendbb is logged by NAC in New Jersey, if they post they're logged. All the data is kept forever and sold in aggregate to Direct Marketing company's in order to study trends. Who is discussing what and where. You can be sure the NAR also buys this data. You can be sure that NAR which is tight with DMA, is also tight with NAC.
NAC is a big outfit, like they say their is NO free lunch, and informe.com ain't free, unless of course you want to type your life history to the mob.
At least with google you know they're watched like a hawk, the NAC is and always has cooperated with the government and lawyers.
Apartment rents rising in Central Oregon
Local renter Corwin Scott said,"If rent goes up $100, I may be looking for a new place or a better job, because I won't be able to afford living here."
As of June, the average apartment rent had climbed by at least 5 percent in Washington, Oregon and California.
Those moving from out of state aren't feeling the pinch. Compared to cities like San Francisco and Seattle, Central Oregon still seems pretty reasonable.
This is just a strange article. Read the title, and you find NOT A SINGLE SCRAP of proof that rents are rising in Cent OR in it. NONE.
And the "local" is scared shitless, and is looking to move because he "can't afford to live here", while ridiculously wealthy renters (uh... yeah) from Cali & Seattle are happy as hell to move to Cent OR, where RE in all it's forms is of course, an incredible bargain.
Seriously, read this unbelievable article. The entire crux of the thing is meant to get current renters (rednecks) the hell out of Bend, and get new money from California. Unbelievable. Self loathing scumbag Bend media liberal skanks.
Nassim Taleb has pointed out the folly of basing your investment theories on the success of one example (be it Bill Gates or Warren Buffett). It's the Millionaire Next Door Fallacy. You can find out the attributes of a successful man, but those attributes could be shared among several other people who tried to do the same thing, but failed. You don't hear about them, so there is survivorship bias.
In other words, don't be impressed by the lottery winner, be impressed by the dentist--he chose a path with a high percentage chance of success.
--TT
Anyone who thinks that posting to a blog is safe is crazy. Maybe Paul is safe as a journalist here, but the rest of us may not be. Blogger is owned by Google. I'd say it's likely that they store the IPs of posts.
I'd say if you come here through
http://www.proxy1080.com/
then you're much safer, as its IP will be stored rather than yours.
Visit bendbb that way, too, if you like.
Personally, I don't think I've ever said anything bad, so I feel pretty safe. But people can always decide to be an expensive nuisance if they wanna be.
The entire crux of the thing is meant to get current renters (rednecks) the hell out of Bend, and get new money from California.
I disagree, this is in response to your post about renting being the smarter choice, what they have done is explicitly throw water on your fire. This article exists for no other reason.
Just take it apart and comment, and then we can all ask the rhetorical question? Why?
There is ONE point that is true, and I think you didn't mention it so I will, all those shitty little low income apartments in Bend, and PDX are being converted to CONDOS, and thus its getting harder and harder for people who earn $7/hr to find a place to live.
That said for $800/mo you can rent a brand new house in Bend, so who in the hell would rent an apartment? Well the cost of heat, elect, garbage, and water add's another $200 in summer and $400 in winter, so for many people a $500/mo apt is still the best thing they could want.
In our forum we have traditionally not gave a shit about apartments, what we care about is homes, the 1,000's an 1,000's of empty homes in Bend that need someone to be in them.
With regards to Rednecks, yes, they need to get rid of red-necks so they can attract high-end calis, its NO problem getting low-end calis, this is why Sebastian needs gated property. The kind of Calis that Bend wants are coming here to escape Mexicans and Blacks, and the poverty class in General. They don't want to look at them.
Look at the current article on the Source by the kids regarding the "Grove" closure, even the kids are saying that downtown Bend is NOW only for Golfers from Pronghorn, Widgi, or Broken-Top. Should we close downtown when golf season is over??
IHTBYB your also going to be in this weeks Source, as you can see below you are expected to show everyone that the BULLETIN has indeed been supporting the Real-Estate Bubble.
Realtors Shooting the Messenger
Written by The EYE
Sunday, 22 July 2007
The Wandering Eye doesn’t feel warm and fuzzy toward The Other Paper in town very often, but John Costa’s column in today’s Perspective section elicited a pang of sympathy.
Costa relates how the local real estate community is giving his paper flak over its supposedly too-negative coverage of the ongoing slump in the Bend housing market.
One broker, according to Costa, sent along an article written by the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors blaming the media for the nationwide real estate slowdown: “ … to a great extent, we can thank steady media coverage of the real estate market ‘correction’ for unfounded consumer concerns.”
The broker then went on to blame The Bulletin for local real estate woes, writing that “we … take issue with the constant barrage of negative publicity concerning the real estate market. … The Bulletin constantly hammers us editorially, week in, week out.”
By “hammering,” evidently, this guy means “reporting the facts.” Blaming the messenger is a familiar pattern, and not just in the real estate racket – consider, for example, people who claim we would be winning in Iraq if only the damn media would stop reporting the bad news.
If anything, The Bulletin has gone out of its way to paint a rosy picture of the Bend real estate market and promote the late, lamented boom of 2004-2006. Costa himself says as much:
“I have looked back over the last few years of real estate stories in the newspaper, and what I found was a continuous string of highly positive and flattering stories leading up to the peak of the boom here.”
In fact there are plenty of people in town (see IHateToBurstYourBubble’s blog) who believe The Bulletin had a big role in pumping up the speculative bubble that drove Bend home prices to insane levels, and was late in recognizing that the air was starting to whoosh out of it. If you derived as much revenue from real estate ads as The Bulletin does, would you go out of your way to piss off your best customers?
Litigious Society & Bubble Bursting Blame Game - But people can always decide to be an expensive nuisance if they wanna be.
I said the other day, and I'll say again, the Realtors have been blaming Old-Media until this sunday. As the prior post shows the Source is directly blaming IHTBYB, and todays "Renting going up" Crap in the BULL is just an attempt to prove IHTBYB wrong. { Economists have been saying for 4-5 years that its smarter to rent }
The Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, and Public-Relations firms that Run Bend are Sauron of lord of the rings. The great eye has been on old-media, this week and next it will turn to the bloggers.
If they can find one iota of libel or slander I'm sure they'll do what they can to silence the blogs. Note in effect the Source has NEVER done anything to STOP the destruction of Bend. All of a sudden they're being quite defensive, but then expect IHTBYB to become the target.
We ALL know, the RE market in Bend is dead because easy other peoples money is dead. The bloggers only document and aggregate the raw data available. No amount of PR, News, or general BULLshit is going to bring the RE sales back.
I predicted months ago that July would be ugly, it would be the blame game month. You have ALL been warned that Eye of Sauron will be on the blogs.
Personally at issue to me is the destruction of the River, the fishing holes, swimming holes, the paving of the river, the fencing of the river. The general destruction of Bend environment during the Boom. From my point of View the Source didn't stop any of it. Sure they made a few jokes, but never was there any hard core serious journalism demanding that Bend NOT be destroyed to make a fast buck.
Now as we all know, all of Bends MOST beautiful people will lose everything. They all have their money tied up in these developments that are now worth penny's on the dollar. They're looking for someone to blame.
I say look in the mirror.
I actually believe that right now (as it happened a year ago) rents might be a bit higher as everyone tries to sell. There are NOT a whole lot of great rentals out there now li8ke there were a few months ago.
Once people give up on this selling season, the cheaps rents will be back on.
The entire crux of the thing is meant to get current renters (rednecks) the hell out of Bend, and get new money from California. Unbelievable. Self loathing scumbag Bend media liberal skanks. - IHTBYB { aka bendbubble2.blogspot.com }
I need to call you on this. First of all while I concur that the calis that want these gated community's are inherently liberals, that want to escape from color or rednecks. I personally don't consider the BULL as liberal. Perhaps the Source is liberal, ... but sometimes I question that.
In my humble opinion Bend is VERY conservative.
It's clear that BOTH liberals and conservatives wanted to make a quick buck in Bend during the last five years. That everyone was silent and went with the program.
I don't think the 'BULL' as much as I detest it and the Oregonian really stand to profit or lose from condo sales. Yes, they need the RE advertising, but it will not go away, as there still are 1,000's of homes to sell for $100k in Bend.
Your last sentence makes me think that you want folks to think that the BULL is a secret collection of liberals that plan this shit to keep out rednecks.
The fact is just like Sebastian, everyone in Bend is trying to give the rich calis what they want.
Just like the dog issue, the calis don't want rednecks or their dogs at the river during the summer, so the cops have been writing $327 tickets for letting a MUTT swim. $327 is a real OUCH for a redneck making $7/hr.
The COP-SHOP in Bend has NOTHING to do with the BULL, and the COP shop is NOT liberal. There is a WHOLE lot more to this get the redneck out of Bend program than the BULL.
ALL this has NOTHING to do with left versus right, top versus bottom, or dem vs rep, or lib vs conserv.
The problem is Bend has an addiction to Real Estate sales, and now they have NO customer for there over-priced dehydrated Siberian swampland, and they're in a panic.
A lot of Bends Most beautiful are freaking out, because they're going to be the greatest fool holding the bag instead of some cali.
It all depends on what you compare it to. Bend is conservative compared to Eugene, but liberal compared to other places I've lived. A lot depends on the people you run into day-to-day. If you hang out in places rich people go, Bend seems crazy-liberal.
Bend is conservative compared to Eugene
That is saying NOTHING, Bend is an old Mill town of workers getting bad wages, Bend only fifteen years ago was in dire straights, folks always had to work here, its never been easy or a college town.
It's been WELL established that Bend Downtown is the home of Golfers of Widgi, Broken-Top, and Pronghorn. All cigar smoking, lard ass, Limbaugh listening, dubya voting, ... These are the folks that run Bend. Now how in the hell can you say that Bend is Liberal?
There might be some chipmunks and liberals hiding, but GOLF is what Bend is about, and that is a republican white mans sport.
This is dirt cheap, there is a ton of dirt cheap RE to rent in Bend.
$950 / 2br - Brand new home in mid-town Bend
345 SE Silvis Lane A
Well, I know plenty of women golfers. They're from California and they believe any crazy conspiracy theory that comes of Daily Kos.
I know plenty of women golfers. They're from California
Yes, Rush Limbaugh came from Sacramento-CA, down there he is a god. These women golfers can be found driving their SUV 'Excursion' any day in Bend 45mph through the traffic circles, that is when they're not smoking cigars, and driving souped-up golf carts.
I know plenty of women golfers. They're from California and they believe any crazy conspiracy theory
Are they staying after the bubble burst? Or are they bailing? Are they cali tourists? Or cali condo owners in Bend?
It's not going to be a fun place to Golf post bubble, as most of those folks will not have the cash to pay the membership.
how in the hell can you say that Bend is Liberal?
Agreed. But there is a natural bent in every reporter to be a flaming liberal. Which is why there is probably such fundamental confusion by green reporters that go to work with a small-time one horse conservative bastion of old boy networking based newspapers, like the Bulletin.
These 22 year old reporters fresh out of COCC naturally want to flame liberal BS all over the page, but have strict orders from higher ups to protect the Old Guard (RE buddies) over all else. So you end up with this weird mix of "self-hating" liberal crap, with RE pump-N-dump "Republican" crap.
Or maybe it's not self hating: They are from somewhere else, and they just have orders to blow out the poor locals, and bring in the cash-laden outsiders. Classic Republicans.
Maybe we should all just read The Source. Cosmically aligned, non-conflicted unabashed shrieking liberals. That's cool. As long as I know what the hell I'm getting, and the reporters aren't completely deluded. What I hate is a rag whose editorial standards have long been sold out to local advertising interests. At least The Source seems to avoid this... (to my knowledge).
Homebuilders stocks look pretty grim. BZH down a nice 64% year-to-date.
Some of them have said things won't be any better in '08.
--TT
I was reading the Oregonian Business section today. Great stuff.
I guy name Lincoln has quit building condo's, now they'll all be apartments. Biggest guy in town, he said that sales have dropped year to date from 50/mo to THREE, that's a -94% reduction in sales, think about that! No More Condos.
What part of this is the Condo Ho's in Bend NOT READING??
Also just as interesting a national bank has bought the old Brewery Blocks that had been bought from Wienhardt ( strohs ) for less than $20M, this bank today paid a whopping $300M. That's 1500% return on your money.
Now think about this you have the complete plug on condo sales pulled, and down -94%, and some guy fifteen years ago buys a few blocks for $20M and makes 1500%. All in the same day. The brewery blocks are all on a 10 year lease so this purchase was a long term investment. BULLY for PDX.
No housing recovery til 2009
2:00pm: CEO of No. 1 mortgage lender Countrywide has a 'gut feeling' industry sluggishness will last through 2008
*
Wall Street down today 1.62%, big news is RE NOT coming back until 2009 AT BEST.
CONDO HO's are you reading this???
Oregon Condo Sales Volume down -90% years to date, with NO pickup in sight until 2010.
City of Bend are you ready to renew your growth estimates?? and tax revenue estimates?? and building plans??
Luke, Everything is going according to Plan, No Bend recovery until 2010, things are just going to get worse the next 2-3 years.
No housing recovery til 2009: Countrywide
CEO of No. 1 mortgage lender has a 'gut feeling' industry sluggishness will last through 2008.
July 24 2007: 2:00 PM EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Countrywide Financial Corp. Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo said the U.S. housing market is unlikely to recover before 2009, as lenders and homeowners work through oversupply, stagnating home prices and the excesses of recent lax lending standards in much of the mortgage industry.
"It just takes a long time to turn a battleship around," Mozilo said on a conference call discussing quarterly results for Countrywide, the largest U.S. mortgage lender. "This is a huge battleship, and we're headed in the wrong direction."
Calling it "a gut feeling," Mozilo said, "It's going to take the balance of this year to get this thing to look like it's slowing down (and) 2009 to head into the other direction."
Credit markets are facing a "sudden liquidity crisis" - July 2007 Money is now going to be VERY-VERY hard to find.
Subprime woes hit junk bonds:
Lack of confidence has frozen lending, backed up high- yield bond offerings, says manager of biggest bond fund.
July 24 2007: 2:28 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Woes plaguing the subprime mortgage market are spreading to junk bonds, according Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund.
Credit markets are facing a "sudden liquidity crisis" in the high-yield bond sector as a growing lack of confidence has frozen future lending, the PIMCO bond manager wrote in an August investment newsletter posted on the PIMCO Web site.
"Both borrowers and lenders may have bitten off more than they can chew, and even those that swallow their hot dogs whole -- Nathan's Famous Coney Island style -- are having a serious bout of indigestion," he wrote.
The subprime mortgage market, in which loans are granted to high risk borrowers despite little or poor credit, has been battered by rising default rates and delinquencies.
Actually, you bend the hot dog in half before you swallow it.
If you missed the pig fest this past Saturday at Broken-Top there is another rich mans Gluttony fest In August at the High Desert Museum
West Coast Bank Will Sponsor the Best of the West Auction and Gala as Part of the 18th Annual High Desert Rendezvous
PR Newswire
The legendary, starlit event benefits the High Desert Museum
July 24, 2007: 02:47 PM EST
BEND, Ore., July 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- West Coast Bank is the sponsor of the Best of the West Auction and Gala, on Saturday, August 11, 2007, at 5:00 p.m. as part of the 18th Annual High Desert Rendezvous.
The High Desert Museum, 59800 South Highway 99 in Bend, Oregon, will host the event, which includes a gourmet dinner and a hosted bar by the Sunriver Resort, along with award-winning Western music artist Joni Harms.
Xandra T. McKeown, Executive Vice President-Commercial Banking is also a High Desert Museum board member. She said, "The Best of the West Auction and Gala benefits the High Desert Museum through fine food, great dancing and an auction like you've have never seen -- all wrapped up in a dazzling setting. Guests will support a wonderful Central Oregon organization while enjoying a memorable summer evening in the high desert."
President of the High Desert Museum Forrest Rodgers said, "Proceeds from the Rendezvous, long considered Central Oregon's premier social and civic fundraiser, support the Museum's wildlife and living history programs, and outreach programs at schools and youth agencies in the region."
For more information and to make reservations, call 541-382-4754, ext 361 or email hdr@highdesertmuseum.org.
I would still like IHTBYB post his opinion on what dehydrated Siberian swampland around Bend is actually worth.
This desert land cost 0.06/cents acre. ( Deschutes County sold Juniper Ridge for one dollar for 1500 acres )
At the 2006 high 5,000 sqft lots were selling in Bend for $300k, and sold to builders who got hosed.
The normal model in Siberian Bend desert has been divide an acre ( 40k sqft )into eight 5000sqft lots and sell each for $200k, thus take land that costs 0.06cents/acre and sell for $1.6M/acre.
When I ask the rhetorical question "How low will they go" IHTBYB Said somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in the middle is $99k/lot, and that is the ASK price today price and there is NO buyers.
A 50 cent offer on the dollar is $100k/lot, 20 cents is $40k/lot. I think that is tops, personally I think its going to be a penny on the dollar, which is still a whopping $2k/lot.
That's $16k/acre for dehydrated Siberian swampland. Land that cost the City 0.06 cent/acre.
That's a fair price to estimate what this land will fetch post bend-bubble.
100's of Bend developers and investors are going to lose millions of dollars and speculative purchasing of desert land.
Many 'investors' in Bend paid $200k/lot for this land as an investment. Already the ASK is $100k/lot and its NOT selling, and that is 50 cents on the 2006 dollar. In my humble opinion the floor will be one cent on a dollar, e.g. these little siberian lots will be going for $2k/lot.
The below is TOO important not to double post. Note the similarity to this event and the event at High Desert Museum a previous post. Note its all about Gorging the rich, decadence, and NOUVEAU-RICHE.
The Nouveau-Riche are already bankrupt which is most fascinating about all this. I know guys that pawned their rolex to get the $275 for the SageBrush Classic.
Ok, here is the point what this stuff is all about is that tickets are given to planning people, politicians, all the little people that could never go to this stuff. They get invited and are told "Go with the program, and you'll get invited again, and again". This is how Bend works, this how the well oiled machine keeps voting for secret deals, and developments that violate State Law. Everybody wants to come to the party.
I predict next year this time that there will be NO more of these Sodom & Gomorah Engorge and puke partys drink until you vomit and eat again,... I have been around Oregon politics for forty years, and Bend is minor league compared to Salem or Washington-DC.
For the little pukes that keep the RE machine alive at City Hall, its all about getting invited to the good party's. This is why the big builders and developers always get approved.
Fundraising, Latte Art and Tempura Fried Bacon in Bend Oregon
July 21st 2007 9:42pm
Gorging the rich seems to be the perfect formula in fund-raising, and the Sagebrush Classic in Bend is Oregon's ultimate fundraising feast. Who can resist 18 celebrity chefs from four continents, preparing 18 courses to feed a hungry mass of 1,300 well-heeled Central Oregonians? Neither myself nor my carload of Portland-based food writers, who have been engaging the art of absolute gluttony for the past 24 hours, could resist a weekend binge in sunny Bend.
Other than the event's big dinner, which hasn't happened yet, I didn't expect to impressed by the Bend culinary world. I was wrong.
San Francisco-based chef Jody Denton participated in the Sagebrush Classic for years and liked Central Oregon so much he moved to Bend. { Now he's fixing to sell all and get the hell out! }
Deep has become a favorite of Bend's super-fit mid-40s demographic—and me. That's not all.
Bend is bumping.
Tonight is the big Sagebrush Classic event: 1,300 diners, 18 chefs, many courses, a live band flown in from San Francisco and many drunken Diamond-studded, suntanned members Bend's Nouveau Riche.
One the items that is NOT mentioned in the gorging at sage-brush classic, its that its at Broken-TOP Bends largest white only gated community.
Security was SO TIGHT for this event that even home owners had to have special passes to get into Broken Top Golf Club Resort.
A second fascinating thing is NO mention from BEND media, the above thing about bacon-wrapped-tempura is from PDX's Willamette week.
What is about Bend being a Gastronomical Orgy behind gated community's? Why not a mention in the local media about the Party of the Year for the Noveau Riche??
Given that people come from all over to eat and drink like pigs, how come our restaurant scene is so pathetic??
If Jody Denton is a God how come he couldn't get a pro manager up from San-Fran that could manage 80 people with a whip 18-7-365??
All these events are NOT so much about gluttony as selling condo's. We have condo's to sell lots of them.
With condo sales in pdx for the biggest developer dropping from 50/mo year to date to 3/mo, a 94% drop in sales volume we can only imagine what the 'second home' scene in Bend must be like.
The rich don't want to be seen eating. They just want to be seen driving their Toyota Prius, which shows how much they care for the environment.
The rich don't want to be seen eating.
{ The rich have drivers }
They just want to be seen driving their Toyota Prius,
{ liberals }
which shows how much they care for the environment.
{ rich + liberal != environ }
A little too much bullshit.
The rich don't drive themselves, a prius is a poor persons car, and the environment is where everybody lives.
Fifty lucky children will get a Nazi-Youth kit in Bend. DVA our Bend public-relations firm best known for strong-arming Outside Magazine to write positive story's about Bend, Oregon, and better know for Bandon, Oregon and convincing taxpayers to subsidize golf courses for the rich has a new nazi-youth program. Lemon-Aid Stands, courtesy of 'Umqua Bank' each child gets $10 and a lemonade stand to start a high-tech biz. Fifty future leaders of Bend have been chosen.
The children are of course banned from using real lemon, and must use Smith Frozen Fresh Powdered Lemon Zest.
When a bank deals you lemons ...
Umpqua uses lemonade program as a microcosmic lesson in lending
By Chuck Chiang / The Bulletin
Published: July 25. 2007 5:00AM PST
Ten-year-old Elizabeth Moss was working hard at her lemonade stand in downtown Bend on Tuesday, pouring out cups of the beverage to passing pedestrians for 75 cents a pop.
“I’ve always wanted to do it,” Elizabeth said as she stood in front of Umpqua Bank downtown with a jug of lemonade almost as big as she is sitting on the stand beside her. “I’ve never had anyone who wanted to help teach me how, and I was really excited to find out I could start one.”
Elizabeth is one of many Central Oregonian children whom Umpqua is helping in their quest to start their first small business, and the bank is hoping the effort will convince parents and small-businesses owners to come onboard as customers.
“The Lemonaire” campaign, launched by Umpqua this month, involves the bank posting advertisements to draw elementary school-aged children to start lemonade stands. Umpqua then gives the children help, which includes $10 in start-up capital, some lemonade powder and a guide about starting a new business.
Lani Hayward, executive director of creative strategies with Umpqua, said the company then sends e-mails or direct mail to small businesses throughout Oregon, Washington state and California, chronicling the bank’s efforts in helping to start lemonade stands.
The hope, Hayward said, is that small businesses will make the connection to their own situation and how Umpqua can help.
“Strategically, we are looking at this year as a key to our position as a business bank,” she said, noting that “The Lemonaire” is a key part of that strategy. “Our overall market strategy is more about our attitude, but we do want people to know we are a business bank, and we want to be looked at by small businesses because they’re 90 percent of all businesses.”
Officials said the bank has distributed 2,100 lemonade stand kits to date, 50 of them in Bend, and 46,000 corresponding e-mails or direct-mail pieces to prospective clients in the small-business sector.
Hayward said the campaign isn’t targeted only at small businesses.
“There is also the consumer banking side,” she said, noting that the children — and their parents — could be attracted to the Umpqua brand.
“It makes them think about us, about how we do things, and they can take those ideas home. So, in a way, we’re planting a seed. We’re not necessarily banking on (children growing up to be Umpqua customers), but that could very well be the case.”
Local advertising and banking officials offered mixed reactions to the program.
Matthew Bowler, a partner at Bend-based public relations firm Mandala, represents a number of clients in the banking sector, including South Valley Bank & Trust.
He said the strategy to incorporate children in the campaign is smart, since it tends to bring positive emotional connections.
“It could also lead to parents setting children’s savings account with that bank if a lemonade stand is successful,” Bowler said. “On the consumer side, it could boost core deposits.”
But he added that small-business owners may not be able to relate between the lemonade stand and their own situations.
“The challenge will be whether they establish a valid connection,” Bowler said. “They may ask, ‘Can a company helping children with lemonade stands help me with my business?’”
South Valley, which is launching its own advertising campaign targeting small businesses today, is going with a more traditional approach of radio and print advertising — without direct mail or e-mail, said Bridgitte Griffin, the bank’s vice president of consumer, real estate and small business credit.
“We have a very different strategy,” Griffin said, adding that customers tend to trust media advertisements more than direct mail.
“Our goal is to build relationships. Catchy is good, but you have to have follow-through.”
Justin Yax, partner and public relations director with Bend-based DVA Advertising & Public Relations, said Umpqua’s flashy approach is a breath of fresh air in bank advertising.
“The industry is traditionally very conservative,” Yax said. “But (The Lemonaire campaign) is engaging, it’s entertaining, and it comes back to being a good corporate citizen (by) helping the community without going too far.
“Banking is a crowded marketplace, especially community banking,” he added. “You have to find a way to differentiate yourself. The message with (Umpqua’s) campaign is that, ‘We’re entrepreneurial, you’re entrepreneurial, and there’s an opportunity to work together. I think most adults can draw from that.”
Economics of De-Hydrated Bend Swampland
by Bilbo Bend
The Daily Realtor
July 25, 2007
Nothing is more difficult to estimate than the value of worthless desert land. Traditionally in Central Oregon. Desert land without water rights had Zero Value.
During the Great Bend Bubble desert land went to a high $2M/acre. What is it worth now? We have talked extensively about little Bend homes. Sure they'll fall to $120k-$200k, or lower, but eventually settle around 4X of gross household income, which is now $40k/yr, thus stability for a little Bend home will be around $160k.
Desert land is another story, because now that we're getting back to traditionalism, banks don't loan on desert land. What drove the bend Siberian desert to $2M/ac was easy money, and nouveau riche bend investors pooling their money into get rich quick golf resorts.
Today there are NO buyers for Siberian Bend Desert Land.
What will be the floor? Going back as long as I can remember rock-farmers never paid more than $100/acre. This is why land is so cheap between Bend and Burns. It's always been poverty with a view.
Twenty years ago I never paid more than $500/ac for any desert land, nor $1,000/ac for forest land in the valley, and the valley land grows trees which makes you money. Until the Llamas ( 20 years ago ) came you couldn't even 'farm' near Bend.
Assuming that the average lots has had an ASK of $200k/lot, that's $1.6M/acre. I think there will be NO buyers about one cent on the dollar, and even that will be a long term investment, we're talking generations.
At one cent on the 2006 dollar, That's $16k/acre for dehydrated Siberian swampland. Land that cost the City 0.06 cent/acre.
This is still too high on historical basis, given that just a few years ago anywhere five miles out of town you could get 100 acres for $100k or less.
While there is stabilization in small homes, and they'll most likely NOT go below $100k in Bend, and they'll stabilize at 4X, of course X will lower because there are NO jobs in Bend, except service jobs.
Even at $16k/acre the desert land would be 32 times appreciation based on 1980's pricing. It's too bad that remote desert land hyper-inflated and that 1,000's of remote tract homes out in no where got built. Now that the bubble is collapsing, all this stuff is going to hyper-deflate.
Bend investors in developments all over Central Oregon will get their life savings wiped out.
Even $16k/acre is too much historically. I could be comfortable with $1600/acre, and that would be a pleasant 60% increase from 10 years ago. Dropping to $1600/acre would mean that buyers would pay 1/10 cent on the dollar for 2006 prices.
In summary I have analyzed this and thought about it for months and months. I see the long term stabilization for Bend desert land to be less than $10k/acre in the coming years.
Bend is near the top of the list in Prius/household. That's because Bend is full of poor people, I guess? Or because it's full of conservatives?
National Association of Realtors reported the weakest existing home sales in five years. It's not what is said, its WHO say's it.
Treasurys off lows after existing home sales data
By Leslie Wines, MarketWatch
Last Update: 10:23 AM ET Jul 25, 2007
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Treasury price losses lightened Wednesday morning, after the National Association of Realtors reported the weakest existing home sales in almost five years for June, indicating that the slumping housing market may not have stabilized.
Home sales in June were down 11.4% from June 2006. Inventories of unsold homes on the market fell by 180,000, or 4.2%, to 4.20 million, representing a 8.8-month supply at the June sales rate.
However, the report had one spot of strength. The median sales price was $230,100, up 0.3% since June 2006, marking the first time in 11 months that median sales prices did not fall from year-earlier levels.
Earlier the Mortgage Bankers Association said its index fell 3.6% for the week ended July 20 in data released earlier, along with a 5.0% drop in the purchase index and a 1.4% decline in the refinancing index.
Bend is near the top of the list in Prius/household.
*
The prius is a very difficult car to get, with a 6-12 back order. That said I wouldn't want one, they're over-priced, and the battery's have a four year life, which run over $2k for a new set. This is NOT a cheap car, nor a cheap car to operate. Until clean batterys are created the Prius actually generated MORE long-term toxic waste.
I walk in Bend. When I walk I only see SUV's driven by fat-pigs on a cell phone racing to the golf-course.
Where are these prius cars in Bend? You cannot hear them, and thus I'm NOT fond of them as many people have been badly hurt.
The Debate here is about the Bend Real Estate Bubble.
The liberal versus conservative debate it BORING. It's right up there with I'm obsessed with my neighbors genitals. Which is the basis of Republican strategic thinking.
There are lots of Liberals in Bend with Too Much money, but that problem is going to get solved in the next 2-3 years. The real problem in Bend is that there are too many lard-ass golfers with too much HELOC money. These too will go the way of the DODO Bird in the next 2-3 years in Bend.
In 2-3 years Bend will once again be a little washed up old desert mill town. Composed largely of folks working two service jobs.
The so called 'retirees' will have to move on to a cheaper place to live. They lost a bundle on DOT-COM, and now they'll lose the rest on the Bend-Bubble. When they sell their house at a loss to get out of here, all they'll have is a partial pension to walk with.
>>The liberal versus conservative debate it BORING. It's right up there with I'm obsessed with my neighbors genitals. Which is the basis of Republican strategic thinking.
I agree. So stop slamming one side when both sides suck! You're so damned hypocritical.
Inventory on Realtor.com almost hit 2,700, which is WAY Up in just a few days. It leveled off briefly, then just blew higher. Bend res counts on COR jumped as well, 1,626.
I thought the inventory story was going away a little. Nope. Ever higher...
Having said that, I think you're RIGHT about the mobility in Bend.
People draw this line of where they think the population will be in 2030, but it's the biggest bullshit in the world. People in Bend aren't coming here to be here, they're coming here to leave something else.
The kind of people that move here are the kind of people who enjoy moving, who are never satisfied hanging around in one place. They'll be moving on to the next place.
If you listen to the people who are living, it all makes sense. They were here a few years. They liked it at first. Now they are tired of it.
You could draw those stupid 2030 lines if people were coming here to work at jobs that are opening up. That's not what's been happening.
>>who are living
Sorry. "who are leaving"
I never paid more than $500/ac for any desert land
This whole debate on land values is tough to "normalize". There's crap out East that isn't worth dink. Plus there's the obvious size of the parcel: The first acre can cost you 100X what the 1,00th acre will on a large parcel.
Just a few years ago, I actually saw comparable homes on differing acreage in fairly comparable locations, and the one with larger acreage went for less! I saw this quite a bit. The marginal cost on that 100th acre was damn near nothing. NOW, large acreage is the most wildly overvalued crap in Cent OR. Bare land has a way of participating in bubbles more than any other property type, and it usually busts the hardest, too.
That's why those crap-spankular "mini-ranches" in Sisters are my Number 1 pick for RE Implosion Of A Lifetime. I can see a lot of Bend property around Bend dropping 30-40%... I can see almost everything surrounding Sisters dropping WAY over 50%. There is stuff there up 5 fold in a few years... not going to hold.
You guys may think I'm crazy, but it's my dream to live in Bend someday. I love the town, the people I've met there, the outdoor adventures I've had and the natural beauty of the area. I don't care if the town never has a great University, or has great jobs, because those aren't what I'm looking for. I already have my degree, have enough money from a long career and am looking for a place to slow down. I think it's a damn shame what has happened to Real Estate nationwide, and buying a home in Bend and many other markets right now does not make sense. Things will stabilize in time though, and Bend will remain a great place for people who love it. Oh, and for the record, I don't play Golf.
You guys may think I'm crazy, but it's my dream to live in Bend someday
Crazy? No, Fictitious? Yes
I agree. So stop slamming one side when both sides suck! You're so damned hypocritical.
*
BOTH SIDES SUCK! OK
But the DIFF is that DUBYA is on guard, thus THEY deserve a little more bashing. Believe me if ClitorisH were on guard she would be getting bash, and we don't have to wait much longer, just another 1-1/2 year, then you'll see there is NO hypocrisy.
The thing is DUBYA created the bubble, and thus MUST be held to 'some' accountability.
People draw this line of where they think the population will be in 2030, but it's the biggest bullshit in the world.
The 2030 plan is political. Even today the population figures were derived and predicted back in 2004 at the peak of the bubble.
The 'People' are city council, growth is in their interest to grow the city, these are ALL professional politicians. Abernethy has never had a real job in his life. They use 2030 planning to mandate BIG spending today which feeds their patrons ( construction firms ).
The city employees want the city to grow so MOM that runs the planning department can hire her son. So the cop shop can hire more inbreds.
It's too bad that Nobody in this town can bridle the un-bridled political machine. One of the main I reasons I personally love to follow the bubble is that just 'maybe' the bubble might force people to become engaged in this city!
For the past five years all the 'mobiles' have been going with the ride, e.g. becoming 'nouveau riche' so they can eat and drink like pigs at Broken-Top. The game is up, folks are going to start looking around and saying enough is enough?
Maybe, maybe not, who knows what the BULL will tell them.
Most likely they'll try to build themselves out of the next five year recession here in Bend.
Already $10M for the pummy yard at the high-school, $30M for COCC expansion, $10M for Juniper-Ridge infrastructure. $5M for new cops and new cop-shop,... there will be new bonds new plans, we have to keep building and spending money in order to generate payback to those that fund the political machine.
Population growth figures, in 2004 they pulled them out of their ass.
Revision?? Its going to take a lot of pissed off people making a lot of noise to turn this battle-ship in a new direction.
Most of the people running this city will not even be here in five years. Nobody cares.
I can see a lot of Bend property around Bend dropping 30-40%... I can see almost everything surrounding Sisters dropping WAY over 50%.
*
Yes, but the desert land east of Bend, South, and North will go down 99.9%
50% down is nuttin, and 30-40% is like no pain.
A 99.9% loss is like owning DOT-COM stock.
When this is all over folks, that only lost 50% will look like financial geniuses.
Which is why you see so many developers today dumping their projects on the market at fifty cents on the dollar.
>>Revision?? Its going to take a lot of pissed off people making a lot of noise to turn this battle-ship in a new direction.
Ha! Revision. A lot of them are talking now about how the 2030 numbers aren't high enough! Don't ask for a revision. They'll revise up!
"There are lots of Liberals in Bend with Too Much money, but that problem is going to get solved in the next 2-3 years."
Which is going to be solved? Exodus of liberals due to economic blight, their money or both? Less affluent liberals! Will that not boost property valuations in CE? And how long till I can get their Tumalo mini-ranches for 50 cents on the dollar as they head back south?
I am tired on renting for $1000 per month, the new $375k home is on a postage size lot (owner is losing their ass, a RE agent). I was promised in e-mails from the RE agent sweeping views and access to BLM out the back yard.
I have called on some acreage listed on craigslist. One owner from the south bay area shared with me that she is not sleeping well worrying about how much will lose. How is that for an experienced negotiator? She gambled and lost big time. I am starting to feel like a vulture though.
Cali-bagger
Don't ask for a revision. They'll revise up!
Perhaps your right. Let's wait until summer of 2008 when 1,000's homes in Bend have weeds knee high.
When you can't find a U-HAUL outbound for any price.
Then let's revise.
This is the desert. The desert isn't kind, everything has to be brought in there is no native food here. Money will become very dear. Given that all jobs currently are service, soon there will be nobody to service, given that discretionary spending will plummet.
The lack of diversity downtown means once again boarded up windows. In time we'll see pawnshops.
The only real job growth in Bend will be working as a guard in one of the hundred gated community's we have created where 1,000's of "Nouveau Rich" live in fear.
She gambled and lost big time. I am starting to feel like a vulture though. Cali-bagger
Even though this is a fictitious post I'll respond.
Never try to catch a falling knife. It's ALL going to be downhill from this point forward until 2010.
A 'cali-bagger' is someone from out of town that has been preying on locals, and that runs City Hall.
You my fictitious friend are NO 'cali-bagger'. You are what is called on opportunist. That said you have to have 'income' to purchase in this town. Nothing is going to appraise here, and there are no good paying jobs.
Nobody is going to be able to buy Bend RE for a long time unless you have CASH. The banks don't want no more Bend RE. In order to BUY today in Bend you have to have documented income for your $350k Median, you have to have +20% down. Your BUY must appraise. 80% of all deals are now NOT appraising, which means you MUST kick in more cash to close. Thus you should have +30% down on hand to close.
After the timber-recession ( post 1986 ) when I was buying homes that is what they required, 30% down.
Let's say you find a home, 30% of $300k is $90K, less than 10% of the American public have that kind of cash, and my guess its less than 5%.
Bend is a balloon, the balloon was financed by HELOC's so 'nouveau rich' could eat bacon wrapped tempura for $20 a bite. Soon we'll have lots of over-weight and insolvent homeless beggars.
how long till I can get their Tumalo mini-ranches for 50 cents on the dollar as they head back south?
The bend-bubble peaked in 2006. Today we're one year into the collapse the next two years we'll see resets and 1,000's of defaults.
The true bottom will be seen in 2009, sometime in 2010 we'll start seeing thing things stabilize, that of course depends on the household income of the survivors, which is a wild card that NOBODY can predict.
After the fall-IHateToBurstYourBubble should receive a humanitarian award or something for creating this Blog and dissemination of the "truth" I will start the recognizion process, but first I need your social and bank account info for the substantial award.
This is my main source of the “news” in Bend.
-Cali-b
I guess being a renter all your life makes sense if you want to live in a cramped apartment with no yard, little privacy, noisy neighbors and a landlord who may raise your rent at any time and who may or may not make repairs when needed.
The smart thing to do is sell your home in a high-priced area, buy another one in a low-priced area with a low (or no) mortgage, and invest the difference.
>>80% of all deals are now NOT appraising, which means you MUST kick in more cash to close.
Just curious. Where are you getting your numbers from? Help me work through how you think this will work.
If I wait for a house that was asking $675,000 last year, is currently asking $500,000, and I finally get it next year for $300,000, are you telling me you expect that it won't appraise then?
I guess it makes sense, because the banks already are getting houses back that they don't want.
So how much will I have to put down? Say I can easily put down 20%. My $60,000 and the bank's $240,000. Will that work?
If not, don't the sellers have to come down even further? Or will I be competing with people who are putting down 30%?
--TT
Below is so funny it MUST be posted here. There are questions, and what was said, and what was meant. Bob Toll, eternal optimist and CEO of luxury home builder Toll Brothers is interviewed, and his response { and what he meant }.
How bad is it out there?
I don’t see the market getting better until, at the earliest, April of 2008. But I do think that when a recovery occurs, it will be much quicker than it has in the past because of pent-up demand.
Sounds good. Of course we all know there is no pent-up demand for homes. Everyone who wanted one bought one. Or Two. Or Three. Gosh, I loved the early 2000s. By the way, I just know Countrywide will predict no recovery until 2009. Most folks will find them more believable than me.
Weren’t you worried about speculation in Florida and elsewhere during the boom?
There wasn’t anything we could do about it. We would make people sign in triplicate swearing up and down that they weren’t speculators, but we couldn’t control whom the builder next door was selling to.
Worried? Are you kidding me? We LOVED it. Do you realize how much our stock went up in three years?
Some analysts think new-home prices would have fallen even further if not for all the incentives - high-end kitchens and the like - that builders are offering.
When you start selling homes for $400,000 that were $500,000, all the homeowners who paid $500,000 are going to be in your sales office complaining, saying, “Why are you doing this to me? Why don’t you just put a sign on my lawn saying, ‘I’m a schmuck?’ ” So you’ve got to give incentives instead of lowering prices because you don’t want to be rude, crude and barbaric to your clients.
Believe it or not, most are too stupid to realize that the giveaways are the same thing as lowering the price. Is America great or what?
There’s been a lot of speculation that with homebuilder stocks down so much, they might be takeover targets for private-equity funds. Do you see that happening?
I think that every builder has been approached and had conversations, but obviously they haven’t gone anywhere. Say an LBO fund approaches a builder, saying, “Look, your stock was $50, it’s now $25. I’ll give you $30.” Well, why should I sell for $30 when every time the market has come back we’ve gone to new highs?
It’s a good negotiating position, don’t you think? Look, I’m a smart guy. I know that $30 is a GREAT price because we’ll never see another housing boom like the last one in anyone’s lifetime. Truth is, I doubt even the 'shopaholic' private-equity guys would pony up for overvalued stocks like homebuilders right now
TT,
Rather than playing your hypothetical game here is a real case.
This house is on craigs-list today for $309k ASK.
Note the county tax assessed value is $260K, a year ago nobody cared, and tax-assess were being appraised 2X or more. Today is different. The tax-assessment and RE appraisal are now very much in sync.
Thus lets say you offer here for $300k, and they accept, you assume your putting $60k into the game, but the appraisal comes in $260k, and the bank will ONLY LOAN 80% of that( $208K ), so the difference at close is is $60K + $32K = $92K. If you offered 300K on this house it would cost you $92K to close, which is about 30% down. Which is exactly what was posted earlier today ( Please read and don't ask questions that have already been posted ).
Some people MIGHT have had $60k to close, but after the appraisal, then they demand $92K to close this is what is now happening. Unless of course YOU FORCE the seller to accept the appraised value. If the seller had a brain he would take it. But sadly the person probably bought the house last year for $300k and thus right now is just trying to break even and bail.
This house is a foreclosure in the waiting.
http://bend.craigslist.org/rfs/381502921.html
http://www.deschutes.org/index.cfm?objectid=65F1110A-BDBD-57C1-91D726DBA942A9E5&OP_T=T&OP_A=A&OP_D=D&OP_N=N&OP_S=S&OP_I1=I&OP_E1=E&OP_C1=C&CMD=SITUS&DATA=60882+Garrison+Dr+&B1=Submit
FLEMING,BENJAMIN R
FLEMING,CRYSTAL L
60882 GARRISON DR
BEND OR 97702
Site Address: 60882 GARRISON DR BEND 97702
Assessor Property Description
RIVERRIM PUD PHASE 5 Lot: 393 Block:
Prop Cls:101 MA:5 VA:66 NH 002 Vol-Page: 2006-07263
Asmt Zone:RS CDD Zone:BEND (CITY OF BEND)
*** Land Values ***
Asmt type Acres
URBAN LOT 0.14
SD
LA
*Total 0.14
*** Improvement Values ***
FB BLT %GD
131 2005 100
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Room Grid for 131 Total SqFt: 1644
- - - - - - - R O O M S - - - - - - -
LR K DR FAM BD BATH OTH FP UTL
Sq Ft: 1644 1st Fl 1 1 1 3 2 1 1
560 Garage
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
***** Values shown below are as of the Assessment Date, January 1 of each year *****
*** --------2006-------- --------2005-------- ---------2004--------
Total Taxable Total Taxable Total Taxable
RMV A.V. RMV A.V. RMV A.V.
LND: 110,830 65,520
IMP: 149,540
TOT: 260,370 123,970 65,520 40,750
Gotcha. Thanks. I think I'd just say "sorry" to the seller. If the bank doesn't want it at $300k, why should I?
You're right. The seller may cry. All the more reason to know what the seller bought for.
--TT
Eastern Oregon Lumber is shutting down because there is NO market for lumber. Does anyone remember here what we have been talking about for months? Just a fews days ago we said it wasn't sub-cons that mattered it was credit and materials. There are always desperate people who will work for free, but if they don't have nails and lumber, what is the point?
How long will the BULL, Source, ... Cover up the implosion? How long will the BULL, Source ignore the decadent 'nouveau rich' party's while Bend Burns?
Major Oregon Lumber Company Shuts Down Mills
By Ethan Lindsey
BEND, OR 2007-07-25
The DR Johnson Lumber Company has closed down all five of its timber mills for at least two weeks. And the company says the layoffs may extend even longer, unless the market turns around, as Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.
-----------
Summer is usually a peak lumber season. People are, after all, building more. Ryan Jacobson says that's why he was so surprised when he and 30 coworkers were called into a meeting at Wallowa Forest Products on Friday and told they were being laid off.
Ryan Jacobsen: "And then they told us that the market had dropped below standards, basically. One of our supervisors was saying Home Depot is feeling it."
Jacobson was the head sawyer at the mill, owned by DR Johnson Lumber Company.
The company's revenues total between $150 million and $250 million a year, according to Oregon Business Magazine.
DR Johnson says its four other Oregon mills are also being temporarily shutdown this week.
Jacobson says he's been through these sorts of layoffs before. He was told to check back in two weeks to see if anything's changed.
The DR Johnson Lumber Company has closed down all five of its timber mills for at least two weeks.
Remember: Milling lumber is the #1 industry in Warm Springs, too. I suppose the casino makes more though...
first I need your social and bank account info
Not sure how sincere this is... but you talkin' crazy! But I appreciate the compliment!
This news from Countrywide means to me that Bend will probably crash in 2009. I picture the Bend market as an ultra-magnified sine wave, which is about 10X the hight... and depth of the U.S. housing market, and lagging about 18-24 months.
If it's 2009 for the U.S., it's 2011 for us. And 10X worse.
Mark my words: Bare rural land (to the West), and whacked out mini-ranches will implode harder & farther that any land has ever fallen in any localized RE crash in this country. I see that stuff down 50+%. And that is generous.
Another thing to watch for...China.
If their over-heated economy shows ANY sign of slipping, or, god forbid, a recession, watch commodity prices plunge. The whole world is gearing up commodity extraction and production based on ever-growing Chinese consumption. If there's a Chinese slowdown, boom. All those building materials will get halved easy.
--TT
Bend Folk had a hard day? Can't sell your house? Dog went to live next Door? Kids are on drugs? Wife has become an RE HO? Got laid off at the mill? Your truck doesn't start? Your boyfriend say's he will not watch BrokeBack Mtn . It could be worse you could be livin' in LA-Pines
La Pine To Choose City Logo
By Joseph Friedrichs, 7-25-07
La Pine, the rugged little community about 25 miles south of Bend, is currently in the works of creating the city’s first logo.
A city logo is essentially a symbol of what a town prides itself on. For example, Bend’s logo features trees, water and mountains. Most Oregon cities have similar logos, boasting the Cascades or the rugged coastline.
For La Pine, however, those styles simply won’t do. No, no. La Pine’s logo must emphasis the raw truth. So the writing staff at NewWest.Net/Bend has taken the liberty to pitch a few ideas to the La Pine City Council.
1) There’s no denying that La Pine has a serious drug - particularly meth - problem. So, our first idea is of a police officer and fierce cop dog chasing a tweaker through some open field. It could be a sunset shot, and an aerial view. Like something from a police helicopter. The tweaker could be tossing a little baggie out as he sprints with his hands up in the air. Maybe toss in a coyote watching from the brush. A little bit of nature always makes people feel good. Also, the coyote would be nearly dead from starvation.
2) We’ve gotten to know a few people who grew up in La Pine. The stories they’ve shared about the locals are outrageous and even sometimes mildly disturbing. Apparently, or so we were told, poaching is a huge problem in La Pine. We figured it might make for some decent artwork on the logo. Picture this, a grizzly-looking man holding a rifle with a silencer attached to it. He’s standing near a lava flow, his right foot mounted on top of a just-slaughtered mule deer. In his left hand is his gun. In his right, a can of Old Milwaukee’s Best. Also, the guy is wearing a coonskin cap and his eyes are filled with fire.
3) The local bar scene in La Pine has a reputation in Central Oregon of being full of tough brutes and ornery women. That’s why a perfect logo for the city would be a bar scene with a dozen or so people in it, all of them screaming, tearing, fighting, drinking and destroying one another. The bartender could be huddled behind the bar, shivering with Fear. Stencil in a few barstools whizzing across the air, maybe a couple copulating on the billiards table, and you’ve got the rawest logo in the state.
Forget the mountains. Forget crystal-clear lakes. A city’s logo should represent the community in an honest way. Councilors plan to vote Aug. 8 on the logo. We can’t wait to see what happens.
La Pine’s logo must emphasis the raw truth.
I think it should be shotgun-wielding local tuff's, stopping every Cali Northbound Hummer, and saying:
"Now you just head home, before'n we start ta' eating you."
From KTVZ.com
Bend to crack down on roadside signs
The Bend Community Development Department is reminding the public that unauthorized signs are prohibited within public street rights of way. And in a week, "strict enforcement" of the rules means those who don't heed the reminder could face a hefty ticket.
"Violations of the code may lead to a costly citation," the city warned in a news release issued Wednesday.
The sign code will be strictly enforced beginning August 1st and citations will be issued for signs, including real estate signs, that are illegally placed in the public right of ways. The city will remove the signs and issue a citation to the responsible individual, officials said.
In accordance with the City of Bend Sign Code Ordinance (Chapter 9-17.4-7), signs should comply with the standards of the Bend Sign Code which "prohibits unauthorized signs placed in the public right of way."
Installation of illegal signs is a Class A Infraction enforced through the City of Bend Municipal Court. The cost of the citation is $500 with an additional $113 court fee.
The city will hold a public meeting regarding the enforcement of real estate signs in the public right of way on Tuesday, July 31st, from 9 to 11 A.M. in the City Council Chambers, located at 710 NW Wall Street.
Miraculously, there will be a public hearing regarding allowances for ILLEGAL REAL ESTATE signs, only. Why? Yes... yet again, BOSS MOTHERFUCKIN HOG is going to bypass the local ordinances that apply to the rest of us poor bastards.
I say again: BOSS HOG BASTARDS!
I will be heading down to Community Development, Building Division tomorrow to turn in the report (including a photo) of a large illegal real-estate sign in a residential zone. You can't miss it on Mt. Washington Drive and Metolius Drive. It violates the sign code in every possible way.
Do your love Bend? Do live in NE Bend? Do you like to get fucked in the ass by strangers? Then you'll love BAT and Bend City Planning. Once again Bend shows how they do business, no public notice, no voting, all secret shove it down your ass. The public is the enemy. The people of Bend voted the BUS program down, the City went ahead and bought buses, and now they're going to build the largest bus barn in the world in a residential part of NE Bend. Talk about the environment, talk about love thy neighbor.
Somebody please become engaged in this pathetic kleptocracy known as Bend, Oregon.
Planned BAT barn surprises neighbors
Bend blames a clerical error, but is still open to comment
By Peter Sachs / The Bulletin
Published: July 25. 2007 5:00AM PST
Neighbors Mike Donaca and Karen Bundy were surprised to learn that the city is planning to build a 21,000-square-foot bus maintenance facility across the street from their northeast Bend homes. Even more so that they never heard about an informational meeting hosted by the city in April.
Concern is mounting among other residents in Bend’s Larkspur neighborhood that the transit center, which would border Bear Creek Road near 15th Street, would conflict with the feel of the area.
At least a dozen residents living near the city’s Pilot Butte public works campus never found out about a public meeting in April because of a clerical error on the part of the city and its consultant, city documents indicate.
The meeting would have filled them in on the city’s plans to build the facility on land that is now vacant, home to rock outcroppings dotted with juniper trees and a few ponderosas.
Officials agree that the residents who did not find out about the April meeting should have been on the list. And some of them are the closest of all to where the new building could go.
The city has scheduled a second informational meeting today, one day before a formal hearing on a zone change that would let the city build the bus service yard.
The city land stretches south from U.S. Highway 20 to Bear Creek Road, along the west side of 15th Street. While the northern half of the land is home to the city’s police department and several public works buildings, the southern portion is undeveloped. East and south of the land lie homes; to the west are the Pilot Butte and Greewood cemeteries.
The bus maintenance facility, which would be the first building on the southern part of the land, would have eight service bays, as well as parking for about 45 employees and about 35 buses and vans. Vehicles would enter and exit onto Bear Creek Road, adding about 390 car trips each day, according to a traffic study conducted for the city.
“Slow down a little bit, make sure we get the public input,” said Donaca, a nearby resident off Bear Creek Road who found out about the zoning change late last month only after seeing land use notices staked into the ground across the street from his house.
“What’s another six months to a year to make sure we do the appropriate plan with it?” he asked Tuesday.
The city is beginning the first of a number of phases to expand its public works facilities, including the new Bend Area Transit maintenance center, which will be funded largely by a Connect Oregon grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation.
Though there is no specific date by which the city must spend the grant, “ODOT has made it extremely clear in the award process that they expect projects to keep moving along,” Assistant Public Works Director Brad Emerson said. Otherwise, funds could have been on the line, he added.
On March 27, a letter was sent alerting residents to April’s informational meeting. Planning records indicate that the letter went to the owners of 98 parcels, all within 500 feet of the public works property. But only two of those addresses were on Bear Creek; Donaca and Bundy did not receive notices.
“We already had one (public meeting), already notified the neighborhood association and all of the neighbors except for about 16 or so,” Emerson said.
In a two-page form summarizing the public meeting, a handwritten note indicated that, “No public or neighborhood association representatives attended this meeting.” The meeting had four attendees, all listed by name: Emerson, as well as representatives from David Evans and the architectural firm hired by the city.
The meeting was held before the city had submitted its formal application to change the zoning and before it had submitted site plans, which include blueprints of where buildings and driveways would be placed.
Though tonight’s meeting comes after both have been submitted, that doesn’t mean it’s too late for the city to make changes based on the comments it receives today, Emerson said.
“Hopefully through this meeting we will be able to address whatever concerns people have,” he said.
Following Donaca’s inquiry to the city, the city sent out another round of letters July 2, this time to property owners with land within 250 feet of the public works facility. That letter went out to 130 addresses, including 11 on Bear Creek. The letter informed residents of Thursday’s formal public hearing on changing the site’s zoning. On July 9, David Evans and Associates sent a letter explaining that because of a clerical error, some residents had not received notice of the April meeting. It also told them about today’s meeting.
A separate letter from the city, alerting residents to the city’s site plan application, was mailed July 13. That letter went to 40 different property owners within 100 feet of the facility; eight addresses were on Bear Creek. The notice itself was mailed to 127 addresses, although some were duplicates and others were banks, utilities or the city itself.
In a written recommendation from city staff included in the file for the zoning change, the city noted that holding the second neighborhood meeting today, one day before the public hearing, was “not ideal” but that everything still complied with state law. The July 2 notice appears to have been in keeping with state law, which requires that notice be mailed at least 20 days in advance to owners of properties within 100 feet.
Though today’s meeting will address both the zoning change, from residential to public facilities usage and the site plans for the bus service center, Thursday’s hearing will only be on the zoning change. The site plans must still be approved by a hearings officer at a later date.
Though Donaca hoped merely for the city to slow down, other residents are opposed to the whole plan. Karen Bundy, whose home is on the south side of Bear Creek Road, opposed the bus facility because of the traffic it would generate and its industrial intrusion on the residential area.
“If they move a light-industrial service into our area, it will certainly not improve our property values, and most probably bring them down,” Bundy said. She and Donaca suggested a park might be a better use.
But Donaca also acknowledged the city’s need to build a bus facility somewhere as it looks to expand its public transportation system. He suggested the city, at the least, make the access for the bus facility onto 15th Street, where vehicles would be less likely to drive right by homes.
On the national level the below may explain why HomeDepot is panicking, and lumber mills are closing the future looks dark. The sky is falling, and the sales are plummeting.
New home sales sink
Sales of one-family houses fell 6.6% in June, well below economists' expectations.
July 26 2007: 10:08 AM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The pace of new home sales was weaker than expected in June, according to the government's latest look at the battered real estate and home building market.
New homes sold at an annual pace of 834,000 in the month, down 6.6 percent from the revised 893,000 rate in May. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast sales would slow to a 900,000 annual sales rate in June.
The median price of a new home fell to $237,900, down 2.2 percent from $243,200 a year earlier. A glut of new homes on the market have pushed down prices and the government figures may not fully reflect the softness in new home prices, as roughly three-quarters of builders surveyed by their trade group say they are offering incentives such as covering closing costs or offering home features for free in order to support sales.
The sales of new homes are recorded at the time a sales contract is signed, so the sales pace may also be a bit overstated due to a rise in canceled orders being reported by many builders.
The report follows a reading from the National Association of Realtors on Wednesday that showed the pace of existing home sales falling to their lowest level since November 2002.
While new home sales make up only a fraction of the overall real estate market, Thursday's report is closely watched as a more forward-looking reading than existing home sales, which are recorded at the time of closing, typically a month or two after a sales contract is signed.
The sales of new homes are recorded at the time a sales contract is signed, so the sales pace may also be a bit overstated due to a rise in cancelled orders being reported by many builders.
Most homes 'sold' are NOT closing, because they're NOT appraising.
The builders numbers are fudged, just like the medians are fudged.
The medians are called "dubois" numbers which means that the recorded price is high, but the actual number of dollars that passed is low.
The RE media has been telling us to thing, which of course are both the big lie.
1.) That medians have held or increased, this is not true, if you look at not what they recorded, but at what the bank actually loaned.
2.) That a 'sale' is a sale, no a sale is just an offer, nothing happens until the bank funds the deal. Most deals are NOT getting funded.
If and when the truth is know its NOT going to be pretty.
The builders numbers are fudged, just like the medians are fudged.
I think there is some funny business going on in transactions, but I'm not sure how prevalent it is, or how much it's moving medians.
I think the bigger "off-stats" influencer is the large number of FSBO & quasi-FSBO homes for sale in Bend. I'm seeing this number (anecdotally) far higher than I've ever seen it before. When I drive by a cluster of 4 or so (usually illegally placed) RE signs, seems like 1 is FSBO. Lots of "dark matter" out there that will bring down the turn rate of MLS "approved" listings.
I think inventory will stay higher longer this year... little Winter reprieve in those numbers. We could eclipse the 14.69 months inventory record...
>>Larkspur neighborhood
Sorry buddy. Not much you can do but change lemons to lemonaide.
1. Change your neighborhood's name to BATspur.
2. Put up a big sign that says "BATspur: Commuter's Heaven. Houses start in the high 600's."
3. Profit.
>>The medians are called "dubois" numbers which means that the recorded price is high, but the actual number of dollars that passed is low.
I knew Norma had an edge.
Bendbust wrote:
... just like the medians are fudged.
That's a funny statement coming from a guy who can't even figure out how medians are calculated.
Thursday’s hearing, scheduled for 5:30 pm in the Deschutes County Services Center at 1300 NW Wall St., is being held jointly by the city and Deschutes County planning commission.
THIS IS A MUST GO SOLDIERS
It's All About the UGB
Written by The EYE
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Everything you wanted to know – well, make that a lot of things you may want to know – about Bend’s planned Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) expansion will be laid out at a public hearing Thursday evening.
The city wants to bring almost 4,900 acres inside the UGB to accommodate anticipated future residential commercial and industrial development. (About 1,500 acres of that is Juniper Ridge, the city’s planned industrial/residential/educational mixed-use showcase.) And almost 15,000 acres are earmarked for inclusion in the city’s “Urban Reserve Area,” to absorb expected growth 30 years out.
The city’s website has a ton of information about the UGB/URA expansion, including a Power Point presentation that was shown at the first “open house” June 27. You also can e-mail questions to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text68623 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or (if not technologically inclined) phone 312-4919.
Thursday’s hearing, scheduled for 5:30 pm in the Deschutes County Services Center at 1300 NW Wall St., is being held jointly by the city and Deschutes County planning commission.
Public questions and comments are invited, and The EYE thinks there could be some fireworks if people start asking questions about the planned UAR expansion to the northwest and the new Deschutes River bridge that city planners say will be needed to bring roads and sewer service to that area.
What 'bendbust' acually said was ...
"medians don't mean shit"
The one thing that RE has said that is still good while all else has gone to shit is that medians have held.
They have held because of artificial computation and the use of 'dubois calulus'.
How about that DOW, eh? 2nd largest drop this yr...bounced off of the day's low of -449 into the three hundreds.
Now what was the Street's worry today? Something about housing and loans?
Credit were credit is due... somebody on this blog has been talking about this before.
What 'bendbust' acually said was ...
"medians don't mean shit"
If medians don't mean shit why does IHTBYB obsess about them every month?
Median prices are by far the best indicator of what the average person is paying for the average house. That's useful information.
Median prices are by far the best indicator of what the average person is paying for the average house. - nazi moron
*
A median ain't an average, an average means something, thats why they call it a 'mean'.
A median don't mean shit.
When a median is based on recorded sales price using 'dubois calculus' it maps to double-shit.
Bendbust wrote:
A median ain't an average, an average means something, thats why they call it a 'mean'.
You still haven't figured it out have you? Keep trying though, because one of these days you'll understand that a median is a type of average, just like a mean is a type of average.
Median sale price is more representative of what the average buyer is paying for the average house than any other calculation.
Credit were credit is due... somebody on this blog has been talking about this before.
It seems like forever we been saying that the great white hope of RE-HO's is mexicans coming to Bend to buy condo's. That has been validated by the BULL.
That the liquidity crisis will dry up all finance and that if if you wanted to buy a RE-HO-CONDO you would have to pay cash.
Wall Street is collapsing because everything has been based on CDO junk-bonds. Only a small part of which are CMO ( RE ), most are collateralized junk bonds. Once this money is gone, then KKR ( The Owner of Oregon ) is out of business. Which means that the entire house of cards will fall.
Once KKR falls then Oregon PERS falls, which means the Oregon Taxpayer picks up the bill, because nobody is going to let cops and firemen go hungry? Right?
Like we always say where were the firemen and cops when PERS & KKR raided the privated pensions in the 80's and 90's using highly leveraged junk-bonds??
Keep trying though, because one of these days you'll understand that a median is a type of average, just like a mean is a type of average.
*
A mean and an average are the same thing.
A median is a tool of the social sciences.
In RE a median don't MEAN SHIT.
When a median is used and the input data is derived from 'recorded' amounts that had nothing to do with the REAL amount of money paid for a property its all a mirage.
Like the royal 'we' has been saying for months the charade is OVER.
In RE a median don't MEAN SHIT.
To paraphrase IHTBYB, "Same Bendbust $hit, Different Day."
Here's a verbatim space ad from the Sisters Nugget (page 33 - July 18):
"Buy A House - Drive Home A New Car!
Builder to include the purchase of a new car with the sale of these Sisters homes.
Builder also to include FREE 42-inch plasma TV, refrigerator with appliance package and $2,000 worth of window curtains!
Appraised value $500,000 * Priced at: $489,500"
It's the "$2,000 worth of window curtains" that I thought was weird. I'm thinking this person buys curtains by the mile.
I'm also curious if the "Appraised value" includes the other crap.
I think it's hilarious that builders are still trying to hold prices up by giving away crap. I think if the stated value does not hold up, or sinks below some predetermined point, the builder is in deep shit with their Bank. Why else are they willing to foist a bunch of useless crap on people to prop up prices?
This is how badly the Bend market has been warped. The use of RE Giveaway Crap is only useful in selling drastically overpriced condo ripoffs, or timeshares where the buyers are just getting raped.
Welcome to Bend.
A mean and an average are the same thing.
A median is a tool of the social sciences.
In RE a median don't MEAN SHIT.
I'll say this about medians & avg's: A median is good for figuring out what happens to "most" people in a sample. But you can't really multiply it times the number of observations or anything to get aggregate values.
Sum()/Count() = Avg
But medians cannot be used to back out anything. Median * Count doesn't equal anything.
That said, an average can be manipulated by just a few outliers and give a distorted idea about a population. I mean, 9 "1"'s & 1 billion has an average of 100MM, which is a poor indicator of the members of the population. While the media of 1 tells you more what "happened" to most people.
May of this year was a good example of why you need both median & avg's: Several big transactions dragged the avg way up, while the median didn't move hardly at all.
I know asking for STD DEV is too much, but that'd be sweet.
2nd largest drop this yr...bounced off of the day's low of -449 into the three hundreds.
I have simply been amazed that the Dow has been impervious to what I see as the biggest loss of personal wealth in decades (perhaps over magnified by living here). The Dow has simply blown higher, despite what I thought was clearly terrible fundamental news.
Although, I thought it was investable way back at 10K, because it was the cheapest on a P/E basis that it's been in years. I think it was basically the last bastion of value. At 14K, I'm less convinced.
At 10K, it seemed like an "OK" deal... 12K seemed sort of high... 14K seems pretty darn expensive... but still not outrageous. 15-16 P/E seems fair w/ rates where they are, and the Dow is closer to 20X earnings. I think fair is 10,500, but stocks can go way out of whack for a long time.
I think someone said, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid".
Despite the loss of wealth there is still a lot of global liquidity. I think some money that had gone into RE before switched to equities. I think stocks could go higher still, even with an RE meltdown.
I think stocks could go higher still, even with an RE meltdown.
*
I think you should become an investing adviser for dubois and breeze so we can expedite the liquidation.
A median is a tool of the social sciences.
*
I know this is difficult, but at issue here is NOT how computations are made but the source of the raw data.
NAR doesn't release the raw data, we have to take their word, that it is what they say.
Given a median and NO data observables that were used to compute that median, we have to 'trust them'.
At least with avg+stddev you generally if you know your subject can set of the pants know if it sounds right.
Given a median from an unreliable source (NAR) is suspicious. Especially when they're using 'dubois calculus' as a data source.
Why else are they willing to foist a bunch of useless crap on people to prop up prices?
*
It was posted here a few days ago, you really should read the posts before you issue questions.
The reason that they give away gifts is then they can ask the same that existing suckers paid. For instance in development A, say a guy paid $500k last week, but this week you reduce the ask to $400k, you do that and you really piss of the previous guy. On the other hand you provide $100k of gifts and nobody notices that the price has gone down.
one of these days you'll understand that a median is a type of average, - nazi moron
*
This is like saying that a cat is a type of dog.
IHTBYB it appears that you don't read much of the comments in your own blog.
Regarding the rhetorical question of why do builders give $$$ toys away instead of lowering price. There is an interview posted here ( if you search this thread ) with the CEO of Toll Brothers, and he explains exactly why its done this way, .i.e. its so as NOT to piss off the people that paid a higher price.
Some kind of psychology thing like I do feel fucked because the price hasn't gone down, believe or not people are generally too stupid to realize that $100k of toys is $100k.
Thursday’s hearing, scheduled for 5:30 pm in the Deschutes County Services Center at 1300 NW Wall St., is being held jointly by the city and Deschutes County planning commission.
*
Did any of you girls go this meeting tonight? I was there. Did all you other girls go to bendbb party?
one of these days you'll understand that a median is a type of average, - nazi moron
*
This is like saying that a cat is a type of dog.
No, it's like saying a cat is a type of animal (and so is a dog).
Do you get it yet, or do we have to spell it out in even more detail for you?
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57603.html
Quote: "Mean, median, and mode are all types of averages, although the mean is the most common type of average and usually refers to the _arithmetic mean_ (There are other kinds of means that are more difficult)."
"Mean, median, and mode are all types of averages, although the mean is the most common type of average and usually refers to the _arithmetic mean_
*
The above is an elementary school definition for children. Are you a child? If yes, then leave this is an adult blogsite.
Elementary mathematics, aka arithmetic is involved in averages and/or means. Arithmetic is NOT involved in the median.
The median is not an arithmetically derived scalar. It is the mid-point of an ordered set.
IHTBYB don't be lazy read this, or have one of your persona's like nazi-moron, or butthead read it to you.
Central Oregon Water Depends On Washington Lawmakers
By Ethan Lindsey
BEND, OR 2007-07-26 The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill this week called the Oregon Water Resources Management Act.
Sponsored by Congressman Greg Walden, from Hood River, the act is made up of four parts, all which aim to help water conservation and dam safety in central and eastern Oregon.
In Bend, reporter Ethan Lindsey took a walk along one of the waterways that could be helped.
------------------
Right now, we are standing across the Deschutes River from one of the most ambitious development projects in all of Oregon. It's the Old Mill.
Some city residents have called it Bend's Pearl District. What once was one of the world's largest lumber mills, is now home to townhouses, business offices, an REI, and a Victoria's Secret. But the naked beauty of the place comes from its setting, right up against ducks, kayakers, and fish running down the Deschutes River.
Like much of the western United States, Central Oregon is knee-deep in a debate over the new complexities of water rights and water conservation.
That debate is going on here. And on Capitol Hill, which is why several non-profits have sprung up as sort of regional water managers or facilitators.
One of the most important is the Deschutes River Conservancy, or DRC to locals.
Executive director Tod Heisler says the best river perspective can be had not here in downtown Bend, but by hiking up the Cascades a bit more, where the river starts out as melting snow.
Tod Heisler: "We are at Shevlin Park, near Tumalo Creek, outside of Bend Oregon. Tumalo Creek is one of the most important tributaries of the middle section of the Deschutes River."
Heisler's organization works as a kind of negotiator among a bunch of different parties, all trying to get their hands in the river.
Cities, counties, native tribes, federal agencies, and farmers all want the water for entirely different reasons.
Tod Heisler: "What most people don't understand is the Deschutes River has two faces, one is above Bend with lots of water, and then below Bend historically 98-percent of the water has been diverted for agriculture."
His group has been around about a decade and has a budget of just over $2 million a year. Heisler says DRC has already been able to make a significant impact on water usage.
Tod Heisler: "You can hear a lot of flow in this creek right here, I believe it was about 10 or 15 years ago you wouldn't have heard such a good flow in this part of the creek."
Other growing western cities like Denver and Phoenix have had much less success managing their water.
That is why Heisler says groups like his are beginning to receive a lot of public support in the form of government dollars -- from city hall, to Salem, to Washington, D.C. But that federal component - which is almost a quarter of the money flowing into the Deschutes River Conservancy - got cut off last year, says Heisler.
Tod Heisler: "And so we were all set up to have our bill go through. Unfortunately, because there were a few changes on the House side, the bill had to go back through the Senate committee and at that point we were caught up in the politics of earmark and budget."
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma was the culprit; he blocked the bill because he considered it pork.
So, Oregon's congressional delegation started all over again this year. And on Monday, the House unanimously passed the Oregon Water Resources Management Act.
That's a four-part package of Deschutes River funding, along with funding approval to repair Wallowa Lake Dam, and two other water rights projects.
Andrew Whelan is Congressman Walden's spokesman. He says it's now up to the Senate to move forward.
Andrew Whelan: "I think the Senate has those as individual bills right now, so they sort of have options now as to what they want to do."
Senators Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden both backed the four-part bill, and have passed it through the Energy Committee. Plus, they have passed each part as a separate bill.
So Geoff Stuckart, in Wyden's office, says they have options this time as it heads to a vote from all 100 senators.
Geoff Stuckart: "It's not controversial, or shouldn't be controversial. So it's just a question of trying to get floor time. There's a pretty jampacked schedule in the Senate these days."
Back at Tumalo creek in Bend, Heisler says people here have seen the water struggles in other parts of the country, so the federal money is even more critical.
Tod Heisler: "It's been harder to come up with the financing, and keep the momentum that we have going. Now we have these huge opportunities, the environment has changed here to really scale up in a way that wasn't possible before. So we really need to get the federal money back."
He says he's hopeful that the legislative dam will soon break, because while speed may not be a critical issue in Washington, it certainly is here on the river.
It appears Super Burrito is going away.
OK, now I PISSED!
This town is getting less and less worth saving. Pretty soon just art gallery, bank, shoes, t-shirts, overpriced restaurant, art gallery, bank, shoes, t-shirts, overpriced restaurant, art gallery, bank, shoes, t-shirts, overpriced restaurant, art gallery, bank, shoes, t-shirts, overpriced restaurant...
ADDENDUM: Super Burrito forced out.
Apparently Super Burrito will not be downtown anymore. This town is officially Not Worth Saving ANYMORE.
*
Maybe we'll do what PDX is doing, roach coaches in every empty lot everywhere. I don't see it yet in Bend.
People NEED a cheap place to eat, the poor have to come to town to 'service' the 'nouveau riche', where in the hell are they going to eat Merenda or Stacatto??
This means the only cheap bite left downtown is Mondo ( $5 for two slices and a coke ).
With Super-Burrito gone, nobody will go downtown. It will only be a place for shoppers, after a day of golf. Hmm, who would have thought of that??
Right now, we are standing across the Deschutes River from one of the most ambitious development projects in all of Oregon. It's the Old Mill.
( WOW the MOST ambitious in Oregon, and remember this article is about water, and the first thing they want to do is tell us about shopping )
Some city residents have called it Bend's Pearl District.
( CONDO-HO's talk such crap, but they're hardly residents, most own acreage in Tumalo and/or gated golf resort property. People LIVE in the Pearl, nobody LIVES at the OLD-MILL its just a place to shop @ outlet stores )
What once was one of the world's largest lumber mills,
( This is like saying that Greece was once a great country. )
is now home to townhouses, business offices, an REI, and a Victoria's Secret. But the naked beauty of the place comes from its setting, right up against ducks, kayakers, and fish running down the Deschutes River.
( Yes, the CONDO-Ho's put the outlet mall right on top of the River, sort a natural paradise. Ducks that shop, fish that eat at Red Robin )
CAN YOU IMAGINE how embarrassing that super burrito must have been?
"Hi may name is hondo-ho, I'm with easy-RE, welcome to bend, can I show you around downtown"...
"What is this? Mexico? I like your shops, but why do you have a place for Mexicans right in town? I didn't even know their were Mexicans in Bend"
We have cleaned Bend of dogs, now we must clean Bend of Mexicans,
Speak-Up, the Jews will be next,
Their ideal city is Houston -- no planning, no zoning, just build anything anywhere. A junkyard next to a school? Sure, whatever.
- HBM Eichman, senior write The Source
*
H.BowlMovement,
Let me tell you that I was in Houston on biz a lot in the 70's and yes, their were porn places next to grade schools, they cleaned it up in the 80's, and in the 90's updated everything.
Today Houston is nothing like the cowboy days, My point is your comparison is 20 years old.
Why don't you do your job and look for corruption in Bend, its the MOST corrupt town in Oregon.
Let's also make this clear to end your little charade about planning. SB100 the land-control law that is administered by LCDC that is the people that tell Bend how to draw the UGB. That little law was brought forth by a Republican Governor. The CONSERVATIVE republicans were 100% behind SB100 why? Some of you with a inquisitive mind other than HBM might ask?? The reason is that SB100 created 'farm-deferral' which basically meant you paid NO TAXES on your land. With SB100 in place, the richest people in Oregon bought cheap land, and simply waited until the UGB came to them, it didn't cost them anything because there were NO TAXES.
In summary the myth that CATO, and all the other right wingers are against planning is a MYTH perpetuated with folks like you that want people to look else where say our yard is cleaner. The Rich Right loves Planning because it creates a government tool to control the outcome of longterm investments at the least cost.
I know that IHTBYB and other lard-arse members of BENDBB's - "Bend Blogger Brigade" Didn't go to the UGB meeting last night at county hall.
For all the time has been spent defining an average&median two concepts that elementary kids and/or nazi-moron can grasp, we still harp on that subject.
In the meantime the Kleptocrats of Bend move on, most likely this is because as has been said the Bend-Blogger-Brigade is really just a collection of overweight disgruntled and un-employed renters. The only people that participate in Bend politics are stake-holders, which is the modern parlance for someone that has a BUCK riding on the issue.
Welcome to Bend. In summary if you want to know what bendbb is doing with his pee-pee tonight, or if you want to talk about what 'average' means come to IHTBYB's blog-site and enjoy the ride.
It's getting tough for KKR the owner of Oregon ( or at least 90% of Oregon major employers ), this junk-bond firm has been financed for the last twenty years by CDO bond debt packaged as high-yield high-quality, now the shit will not sell. KKR was created with PERS money, and from 1985 to 1995 produced 15% annual returns to the PERS pension fund.
There's a good little book called "American what went wrong', bartlett&steele, back in late 80's that explains exactly how PERS & KKR robbed most of the private pensions in USA, basically bought companys replaced pension cash with IOU's, and then used the pension cash to pay interest to PERS. SWEET.
*
KKR IPO running into headwinds?
The private equity firm is vulnerable to problems in the debt markets - which could ultimately delay its initial public offering, according to the WSJ.
July 27 2007: 4:15 AM EDT
LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- Problems in the debt markets could force private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. to postpone its initial public offering, according to a report published Friday.
The buyout firm, which filed for a $1.25 billion IPO earlier this month, could be hit hard by the troubles in the credit markets since it is still trying to complete financing for many of its deals, the Wall Street Journal said.
KKR has been at the helm of some of the biggest deals in the industry. It bought Texas utility TXU for $44 billion and First Data Corp. for $28 billion. Many of its deals still need to be financed at a time when conditions are growing tougher in the debt markets.
Underwriters of the deal told the newspaper there's hasn't been any change in timing for the deal. A source close to KKR told the Journal the IPO should hit the market in late September.
KKR has been at the helm of some of the biggest deals in the industry. It bought Texas utility TXU for $44 billion and First Data Corp. for $28 billion. Many of its deals still need to be financed at a time when conditions are growing tougher in the debt markets.
*
All this from using Oregon PERS pension fund as its piggy-bank. This is how great fortunes are made. The loss of junk-bonds to KKR means the end of business as we know it, which means the stock market will implode.
1. What city requires a master plan before annexing land? NOT BEND. Bend won't even purchase rights of way in areas to be annexed. Take a look at Bend's unfixable SE street mess. (Redmond will soon require a master plan.)
2. What city requires infrastructure, including schools and parks, be installed concurrently with new development? NOT BEND! (Wilsonville has done it for 20 years.)
3. What is the purpose of this blogsite? To seek a better Bend by combining growth with long-range planning through cooperation between the city and developers. Since Bend has become one of the fastest growing cities in the country, infrastructure has not kept pace with growth, and the quality of life for Bend residents has suffered. This blogsite requires the city not to approve new developments unless the infrastructure for these developments is in place or under construction.
4. What is infrastructure? Transportation facilities (roads), water, sewer and storm water facilities, electrical power, parks and schools.
5. Who pays for infrastructure? Current residents pay through property taxes and assessments. These tend to increase significantly as infrastructure becomes inadequate due to growth. In fact, Councilor John Hummel warned the Council will soon hit voters with a monster tax increase for infrastructure. While the true demand every new home places on infrastructure approaches $50,000, each new home is assessed impact fees (also called System Development Charges) totalling only $12,500.
6. Will the initiative drive up the price of housing? Bend has already surpassed Portland in housing costs. Bend’s average home price is nearly $400,000, almost double what it was four years ago. Market forces rather than building costs drive housing prices. Like the current $12,500 impact fee on new homes, this initiative will have very little effect on housing prices.
7. How will the initiative affect growth? It will allow Bend to maintain an improved level of livability as it grows, which currently is not the case.
8. Is it realistic to expect the initiative will work? Yes. Wilsonville, a fast growing Portland suburb, has had such a plan in place for twenty years. The result is infrastructure needs are met as development occurs, and livability for the community is maintained in spite of its rapid growth.
9. Is Bend's City Council capable of planning infrastructure first? Yes. the city's $100,000 Juniper Ridge plan for empty desert not even part of Bend. Now that the Council has given land to Les Schwab for less than the cost of running in infrastructure, we'll all pay, and pay, and pay!
WHO DO BEND'S COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES WORK FOR?
You decide. Developers pay their salaries through application fees. Their sense of ownership is so great one demanded a refund because he claimed Community Development employees couldn't prove they worked hard enough on his behalf.
WHY WAS BEND'S NEWEST SCHOOL, PINE RIDGE ELEMENTARY, HOPELESSLY OVERCROWDED FROM THE DAY IT OPENED?
The city neglected to tell the school district it planned to approve acres of super high density housing along Powers and Brookswood. Once Infrastructure First is law the city will be required to coordinate with school planners.
COULD STORMWATER DRAINAGE BECOME A HALF BILLION DOLLAR TAXPAYER HOSING?
Density without infrastructure means big bucks for developers and even bigger headaches for the rest of us. Ever wonder why water pools everywhere after a heavy rain or during snow thaws? This January over 30 areas were under water! The answer is Bend has NO stormwater drainage system. "Drains" occasionally located along streets and in subdivisions are just drill holes. Even when clean they fill up after a quarter inch of water. When Bend was big lots and open spaces water drained naturally. Now that the city is all density and asphalt, runoff has no place to go. Bend's government made the problems worse by approving below grade developments; water seeks the lowest level. Last winter's flooding was only partly nature's fault. According to one engineer, retrofitting a stormwater system will give taxpayers a half-billion dollar soaking. Once Infrastructure First is law the city will be encouraged to require developers to install stormwater systems in new high density developments.
BEND'S SEWER SYSTEM - A $200 MILLION STINK THAT WON'T GO AWAY
Because the city didn't plan for sewer infrastructure, we have an over capacity patchwork relying on pumps rather than gravity. When the pumps fail, residents in nearby lowlands wade in deep doodoo. Taxpayers are already paying for fixes in their rapidly increasing sewer bills, especially the costs of retrofitting sewers to the nearly a third of already developed Bend without them. The city is finally developing a master plan which, because Infrastructure First isn't law, will only be implemented piecemeal. Worse, although the location of new sewers will determine where Bend will grow, city officials admit they have no intention of purchasing, or even identifying, rights of way for adequate arterial and street coverage.
An interesting article in the Sisters Nugget:
Builders air frustration with city
A pot of frustration with the way the City of Sisters does business has been simmering for a long time. On Thursday morning, the pot boiled over.
Many local people - developers and small builders alike - believe a "dysfunctional" Sisters city government is creating an environment that is damaging the economy, making it difficult for new business to come to town and creating a nightmare for those who are investing in the city.
A meeting, scheduled on short notice, was held last Thursday morning as a forum for those who are invested in the community to express their concerns. The meeting drew a standing-room-only crowd at City Hall with every seat in council chambers filled and the walls lined, in places two people deep, with those who couldn't find a seat.
Not only was the room filled with area developers and contractors, but realtors and various local business owners were present to contribute, as well.
While the air of tension and frustration was high, the meeting was civil. The meeting began with a comment that the gathering was not a witch hunt or a lynch mob. Its purpose, organizers said, was to provide constructive criticism for the city with concrete suggestions aired. The hope was to assist the city to move forward and improve its interaction with the citizens that it should be committed to serve.
"The problem with this city is the same problem that is facing the country. Who is in charge?" said Zoe Willitts, owner of Shibui Spa. "Where does the buck stop? Who can we approach when things go wrong? Who will accept blame and fix the problem? There is no leadership."
Numerous comments suggested that the city seems unconcerned with the engine that is driving the economy in Sisters. Some cited a mentality in city government that makes light of delays that cost developers thousands of dollars. The city's justification is that the developers can afford it, as they make plenty of money. And the same mentality is perceived by small business owners.
It wasn't just the professional city government that came under fire. The city council was criticized for micromanagement of the city, interfering with planning and tampering with zoning issues and the comprehensive plan.
The impact of a misfiring economic engine can be felt right down to the grocery counter.
"I would like to be able to sell a gallon of milk for less than four dollars, but if I want to expand my business and have to do everything that the city wants, it could be five dollars," said Gordon Wilson, owner of Sisters Harvest Basket. "It is very difficult to make a profit in a business here, when the city makes it harder. It just slows down everything economically."
Wilson and others were concerned about efforts to impose modern codes on the older and classic buildings in town. They say it has become cost prohibitive to bring these older buildings up to modern code.
Some feel that city fees impede businesses from becoming successful.
"I think I am the poster child for extravagant System Development Charges (SDCs)," said Lisa Clausen, owner of Sisters Movie House. "The city charged me for more than twice as much water as I am actually using. I have yet to reach half of the amount they made me pay for in SDCs. This can really affect a business.
"It seems like the city doesn't care what people risk to try to have a business here," Clausen said. "All these costs have to be paid, and it affects ticket prices. Everyone who comes to the movie house is helping to pay the city."
Realtor Peter Storton, who launched the meeting, said that the city has the same kind of obligations to its customers as any private-sector business.
"The City of Sisters is no different than any other store front," he said. "It is a business that provides services. It is important that the city have the same courtesies and service that we expect at any other place where we do business."
What is your experience working with the city? Let the Nugget know at www.nuggetnews.com or e-mail editor@nuggetnews.com .
This is a town so imbued with the culture of Boo Hog-itis, that when the town even does the slightest thing to impede on him, he goes stark raving ape shit. Peter Storton is the epitome of Boss Hog mentality. These sorts of people can't believe they are being made to actually pay for City services, or being made to wait, because they are used to handshake deals that go thru with the paperwork being a total afterthought.
Yeah people, you're actually going to have to FILL OUT the paperwork and actually PAY FOR STUFF now, cuz Sisters has exploded & Boss Hogg handshake deals don't work anymore.
Sisters: The Most Dysfunctional Town On Earth.
In summary if you want to know what bendbb is doing with his pee-pee tonight, or if you want to talk about what 'average' means come to IHTBYB's blog-site and enjoy the ride.
Nice. And only 9AM. I'm used to seeing this after happy hour.
I know that IHTBYB and other lard-arse members of BENDBB's - "Bend Blogger Brigade" Didn't go to the UGB meeting last night at county hall.
For all the time has been spent defining an average&median two concepts that elementary kids and/or nazi-moron can grasp, we still harp on that subject.
Really? I had on my IHTBYB t-shirt.
Maybe if you don't like the subject matter you can:
1) Go away
2) Stop reading
3) Start your own blog & talk about what you want.
I know, freaky.
This isn't you is it BendBust? Cuz you be hittin' the sauce awful early. Then again, it is Friday.
Here's a comment from the online Nugget:
Actually, its rather refreshing to see a city now [not] bow-down to unrefrained development at all costs. Oh, and sorry, Debbie, its not up to a city to occupy your kids time and find them a job. You want mass-market, please MOVE to Bend. As for you, Storton; you've made your millions and beyond. Why can't people accept the unwritten social compact that comes from living in a governed society... that government exists to serve equally the needs of the citizens...n not the developers, and not the land barons. If you don't like Sisters small town feel and attitude, move to Bend... or better yet, the municpal stripmall known as Redmond.
I think that 'now' is supposed to be a 'not'. The attitude of this town has completely done a 180 in the past 5 years. Letters to the Editor used to be old women thanking each other for birthday parties & crap. Now it's people with an overwhelming sense of entitlement & gimmee gimmee gimmee. Everyone is pissed at everyone else.
All conincident with a huge influx of Californians...
"The problem with this city is the same problem that is facing the country. Who is in charge?" said Zoe Willitts, owner of Shibui Spa. "Where does the buck stop? Who can we approach when things go wrong? Who will accept blame and fix the problem? There is no leadership."
*
Wow a DUBYA moment. As much as I didn't like ClitorisB, I have to admit that he fessed up to failure. This person gets right to the issue. Everybody wants to make a quick buck, but nobody wants to pay the bill. The party is over, and now we have to pay, and everybody is literally passing the buck.
>>overweight disgruntled and un-employed renters.
Well, you got two out of three right. I happen to be skinny.
--TT
Sisters: The Most Dysfunctional Town On Earth.
*
Sisters is a MINOR league FUCKUP.
Bend is right now negative a Billion dollars in required infrastructure costs that you explained above for sisters. Everything in Bend has been build, and do the plan later.
The day of reckoning has come, as the above explains we now have a 1/2 billion flood-control requirement, and $200M sewage problem, all because the developers were allowed to defer the infrastructure. Now that we have all deferred and the developer/builder it broke, guess who gets to pay the billion dollars?
Another good one since I'm on a roll is the entire COID ( canal ) must go to pipe, because all the people in cali-tracts are throwing garbage in the canal. Once the canal goes to pipe all wells are assumed to dry-up, which means that everyone in the county will have to go on city water. This will cost another $200M, thus total bill due because Boss-Hog developer wasn't forced to PAY FOR Bend infrastructure when he built, like any other town like "wilsonville" which really is a place for rich people.
Bend: The Most Dysfunctional Town On Earth. Sisters a little slut sister of Bend.
Realtor Peter Storton, who launched the meeting, said that the city has the same kind of obligations to its customers as any private-sector business.
And then in Bend
WHO DO BEND'S COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES WORK FOR?
You decide. Developers pay their salaries through application fees. Their sense of ownership is so great one demanded a refund because he claimed Community Development employees couldn't prove they worked hard enough on his behalf.
Planning is NOT a service for the rich, it is a gatekeeper to keep the environment from being destroyed. The problem for the past twenty years in Bend, is that developers proposed and built, and filled out paper later. The City NEVER enforced LCDC law ( SB100 1972 ), the State didn't care because Salem can give a shit about eastern oregon.
The bend developers in their WHOLE fucking life never had to worry about state law, but NOW, guess whats happening? A few lawyers are started to force the Salem AG to enforce the law. Holy shit, game over.
Well, you got two out of three right. I happen to be skinny.
--TT
Yup, 2 out of 3 IHTBYB, TT, and BENDBUST
Debating the Bend Oregon Real Estate bubble, its implications for Bend residents, businesses, and the economic outlook for this area.
There is no longer a bubble debate, now its only people and business, where do we go from here.
http://bendinfrastructurefirst.com/
The above site is right on, everything that bubble2.blogspot.com would like to be, .e.g. credible information that the People of Bend can use.
IHTBYB needs to stay on Bend economics, and give up showing how smart he is about the stock-market and every other shit-hole but Bend.
Sometimes he's almost as bad as The Source, always focussing on the problems elsewhere, rather than the problems we have right here.
The bubble has burst, its game over, everybody has to pay now for the party. It's time to focus on Bend Economics IHTBYB, and figure who is going to pay what.
Debating the Bend Oregon Real Estate bubble, its implications for Bend residents, businesses, and the economic outlook for this area.
There is no longer a bubble debate, now its only people and business, where do we go from here.
"The City of Sisters is no different than any other store front," he said. "It is a business that provides services. It is important that the city have the same courtesies and service that we expect at any other place where we do business."
Does anyone else think it's incredibly arrogant and ridiculous to expect that a municipality should treat the entities it regulates as customers? It goes against the concept of government regulation; regulation is done for the benefit of the taxpayers.
It's clear to whom this developer is referring: the City of Bend, whose planning and building departments internally refer to applicants as "customers." WRONG. The customers are, and always should be, the taxpayers. The applicants are being regulated for the taxpayers' benefit.
If Sisters bends to this demand, well, it's wrong.
The big question today in Bend is where do we build. Everybody knows we have to keep building. We must keep expanding the UGB so the perimeter land owners can win the real estate lottery.
The problem is we cannot build south because of the lava.
We cannot build north because its all farmland, and LCDC ( SB100 1972 ) Oregon State law doesn't allow farm land to be destroyed for housing tracts.
We cannot build east because of valuable geology, LCDC doesn't allow National & State treasures to be destroyed for tract homes and malls.
We cannot go west because its national forest.
Perhaps Bend has found a natural growth boundary at present. Perhaps this is geographically the maximum space Bend can occupy. Perhaps at this point if WE must grow the population so that we can pass old debt onto new-comers. We have no choice but to build up, or fill in.
There is a last choice we can have a building moratorium until we decide what the goal really is.
Whether the plan be 2030 or 2050 Bend doesn't have to become a population of 500,000. People say the debate about population growth, and city expansion is over, but the fact is it will never be over.
bilbo: "In 1972 with the blessing of Oregon Republican Governor Tom McCALL the Oregonian blessed the passage of SB100, that allowed the creation of Sunriver, and Black Butte Ranch."
Sunriver opened in 1968, Black Butte Ranch in 1970.
You know, bilbo, five minutes' worth of research on the web could prevent you from making a public ass of yourself. - HBM
***
The people who put SB100 together, are the same people who expanded Black-Butte Ranch and Sun River. The whole plan all along was to limit 'resorts' to the chosen few, thus the creation of SB100. The same with Salishan at the coast.
What I should have said is that SB100 created the vehicle such that Sunriver and Black-Butte would become city's within themselves. Going back to 1968 there were simple little developments.
The purpose of SB100 was to keep only the big guys in the game, and to prevent the little farmer from creating his own SunRiver, and/or Black-Butte. Thus SB100 was created as a way of creating a monopoly so that only the politically connected could build resorts.
The side-effect, which was planned all along as well, as the little people, not being able to develop, as they didn't have the lawyers to play the SB100 game, they sold their land for cheap. In time the big boys bought the land and did their magic.
This is all a long story, but I have infinite patience.
There are two important parts to the history of SB100.
1.) Tax exemption to farm owners, thus investors could hold land for years without cost.
2.) UGB would collapse fringe propertys, and the big boys would be land cheap, and then have their friends put that land into UGB.
The above is simply Oregon History. I have been involved with SB100 since the 1970's. I'm more than glad to write about the subject forever.
That said I want to see Bend protected from development to date NOBODY has forced the State to enforce the LCDC rules on the City of Bend.
1&2 were the carrots that 'right-wing' put into the law that got it passed, the problem is the good stuff for the people and the environment NEVER got enforced. All that ever got enforced was deferred taxes and forcing poor people to sell their land for cheap.
In the willamette valley they enforce LCDC admin law, but NOT in the area of Bend, here its approve, and justify.
Lastly, I didn't say that Bend city council were 'oligarchs' it was a consistent quote from last night, and THE BULL will not report what was said, so thus YOU should have been there.
If Sisters bends to this demand, well, it's wrong.
The little slut town of sisters wants to be just like its big brother in Bend.
Why not its all the same developers we have laws on the books that say this stuff should be uniform, thus given that developers run Bend, why shouldn't they run Sisters.
Uniformity is essential to business. Uniform commerced is essential for profits. What is good for Brooks & Miller is good for America.
Same battle below as Bend, but this is The Dalles, NOBODY seems to want an UGB expansion. Note the quotable here is over & over "We don't want to end up like that shithole Bend".
City backs UGB expansion, despite protests
Citizens protest against effects of growth
By RODGER NICHOLS
of The Chronicle
In order to clear its slate of pending matters before the traditional August recess, The Dalles City Council made major decisions on a number of pending items at its meeting Monday.
The public showed up in standing-room-only numbers, but their attention was focused on a single item: a public hearing on amending the city’s comprehensive land use plan, including an expansion of the city’s Urban Growth Boundary (UGB).
Seventeen people testified, the majority of them in opposition to the move.
Among the comments:
Matt Bowen presented a petition in opposition to UGB expansion with 317 signatures.
“They’re happy with the town the size it is,” Bowen said. “They’re happy not getting rich. I talked to 20 other towns, and they said ’You’re a mark. You better slam your doors, or you’ll end up like Bend.’”
Glenn Summers: “The rest [of the lands in the UGB] will be annexed, sure as shootin.’”
Colleen Tenold Sauter: “We couldn’t vote for any of you, because we’re outside the city limits, but we will be affected by your decisions. I believe the documentation has been skewed by the planning department to represent this overzealous property development you’re trying to bring in.”
Steve Gillette: “I bought my home [on Cherry Heights Road] five years ago in the Scenic Area for the specific reason that I didn’t want anybody to develop around me. It’s going to affect my enjoyment of my property.”
Dennis Radford: “Farming next to houses increases theft, vandalism and liability. If you move the UGB, it’s going to mean more problems for farmers.”
The Friends of the Gorge, represented by Peter Cornelison of Hood River, said it was opposed to any UGB expansion and that if it proceeded, it should be considered a major change, which would literally require an act of Congress.
But several testified in favor of the proposal, including Dennis Whitehouse, facilities manager for Columbia Gorge Community College, who said it would allow the college expansion room to the south.
And Tycho Granville of Murray’s Addition, said “Either you expand or you die. You guys have to do it. I wouldn’t pay much attention to the Friends of the Gorge; they’re going to sue anyway.”
In the end, councilors voted in favor of the motion, which was to direct staff to prepare an ordinance for council approval. That will come back to the council in September as a discussion item, then there will be another public hearing before it is adopted.
Should it be adopted by the city, the whole process starts over at the county planning commission, said City Planning Director Dan Durow. From there it would go to the county court, the state of Oregon and the Columbia River Gorge Commission.
“There will be many more opportunities to testify.” Durow told the crowd.
The council also heard an update on the situation at The Dalles Cherry Growers. Company representatives said 1.5 million gallons of solids had been pumped from the number three pond, which has been causing the last two months worth of odor. They said two additional aerators had been added, and that they would attempt to “restart” the correct bacterial process in the pond Tuesday night, which they warned would likely cause a temporary increase in the odor until the pond stabilized.
Company representatives were quizzed by Councilor Rob Kovacich, a chemistry instructor, who has been sharply critical of Cherry Growers’ efforts in past meetings.
“Why don’t you just put in bottom aeration?” he asked. “Then you’d never have the problem again.”
Councilor Jim Wilcox displayed frustration at the slow response, suggesting a new regulation that would allow the city to fine the company up to $5,000 a day.
“We know that Salem brine has been coming here for years filling that pond,” Wilcox said. “We’ve had promises before, but I don’t think it will work unless we have a hammer on the end.”
Ultimately, the council decided not to make any regulatory changes or impose fines at this time, but Mayor Robb Van Cleave warned the company that any further problems would likely face action.
“If this happens again, there will be zero tolerance,” Van Cleave told the company, “We have an earmark on the Senate side for $1 million to work on Brewery Grade,”That would start the $18 million flour mill project just 60 feet from pond number three.“
The company outlined a series of benchmarks for progress with the problem:
• Aug. 17 - electrical upgrade at the plant, with new panels
• Jan. 1, 2008 - preliminary long term plan
• March 1, 2008 - cost benefit analysis
• May 1, 2008 - public review and comment
• June 1, 2008 - adoption of final long-term plan
Councilor Kovacich warned the company that if any benchmark were not met, the city’s nuisance ordinance would go into effect, triggering a possible $500 per day fine.
In other action Monday, the city council:
• Held public hearings on a minor vacation of parts of Lone Pine Drive in preparation for an eventual roundabout intersection with Highway 97, and on sign ordinance revisions. No testimony in opposition was presented on either item. Both will appear as ordinances for approval at a later council meeting.
• Approved requests for proposals for a Washington Street pedestrian underpass under Interstate 84, construction of a cruise ship dock, and renovations on First Street.
• Directed staff to prepare an ordinance for a new storm water fee structure, which will add $2 to the water bill of each residence. The money will go into a fund for storm sewer construction and maintenance. That will appear as an ordinance for public testimony at a later meeting.
• Called for a public hearing on adopting transportation and storm water system development charges for new development and construction.
If Sisters bends to this demand, well, it's wrong.
Read The Dalles story, there's some real boss hogs going back generations. Trouble up there is they really don't want a tract village next to their farm, they know that their horses and cattle will get shot, and their atv's stolen.
Nobody anywhere in Eastern Oregon wants these Urban Growth Boundary's to expand.
The funny thing is the the whole purpose of UGB is protect farm, and like last night, they only want to go NORTH ( Les Schwab, JR ... ) to the farm-land.
I can tell you the reason, and here is the REASON. The farm land is-was the tax-exempt-deferred property this is the property that the people who created SB100 bought 25 years ago, and now its pay time, LOTTO time, time to make the bucks,
So they sat on the land for 25 years, paid little to no tax, and now make a fortune on development.
They have the BEST lawyers that money can buy, and NOTE that Stoel, ... was around when SB100 was written, then know the LCDC and all its loop-holes.
Nobody can stop the process, the citizen is ZERO, and making a buck and destroying a lifestyle and everything that people came here for is over.
This should be a clear signal to anyone coming here, pay NO attention at what it looks like today, because tomorrow its all going to be a strip-mall everywhere.
Relax everybody. It will be all right. You can leave Bend if you want, it's a free country. Things are going great, Bend is great.
So many beers, so little time :<
This is the most sad day of our lives. This reminds me of the scene in Star-wars-3 where luke causes the monsters head to be crushed. Many people in Bend, will say good we got rid of the little Mexico, but for those opposed to the dark side, we know that Super Burrito represented real food at its best. What's left? Parilla, Rigoberto's?
I would always prefer a green chile burrito at super-burrito any day over a bacon tempura at the DEEP.
Super Burrito, like others, is forced out
By Anna Sowa / The Bulletin
Published: July 27. 2007 5:00AM PST
Central Oregon residents loyal to downtown’s Super Burrito have until Tuesday to gobble up the restaurant’s generous portions of quickly made and affordably priced Mexican food.
In another chapter of the changing face of downtown Bend, the decade-old establishment is closing its doors at the end of the month, making way for a new retailer to fill the spot in the historic D.H. Sphier Building on Northwest Minnesota Avenue, proprietors say.
The building’s owner is remodeling the structure and plans to put retail stores in the spaces once occupied by two other restaurants. Super Burrito owners say the same is planned for their space.
Representatives of the building’s owner, DesertScape, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
“It’s really sad — especially for my father,” restaurant employee Patty Moreno said of her father and owner, Miguel. “We’re looking really hard (for another location). We really want to open another place.”
The Morenos don’t know when and where they might open another Super Burrito, but Patty Moreno says downtown rents may keep them out of the city’s core.
“Rentals downtown are too expensive,” she said.
Super Burrito’s 1,000-square-foot space, for which rent was raised five months ago, costs $2,183 per month to lease, or just more than $2 per foot, Moreno said. Still, the Morenos thought they could stay open without raising food prices too much.
At the beginning of the month, Moreno said DesertScape issued a 30-day notice to move out because the space would no longer be used for food service.
DesertScape representatives previously have said that they’re remodeling the Sphier building to improve the structure and bring it up to a level that justifies prevailing market rents.
Brokers and building owners have said prime locations downtown are renting for around $2.25 to $3 per square foot, per month.
On June 15, Super Burrito’s neighbor of almost 10 years, Kuishinbo Kitchen, closed to make way for remodeling. Kuishinbo Kitchen owners haven’t announced plans to reopen elsewhere.
Both Super Burrito and Kuishinbo Kitchen owners acknowledged their Sphier building spaces needed work.
Also, a mixed-use development going up behind the restaurants blocked their back doors, stifling ventilation and access to trash receptacles.
Double Happiness, a Chinese restaurant formerly on the corner of Bond and Minnesota, left the Sphier building last year, due in part to the new development blocking their rear access. The restaurant reopened in the Tuscan Square center on U.S. Highway 20.
Kuishinbo Kitchen’s space hasn’t been filled.
Super Burrito has been a favorite of Bend resident Erik Jurgenson, 19, and his friends since they attended Bend High School. They always order the bean, rice and cheese burritos, he said.
“It seems like all the young people come here,” Jurgenson said around lunchtime Thursday.
At a nearby table, Redmond residents Elva Moore and Carol Gove ate chicken tacos. The women work downtown and Moore says she eats at Super Burrito once a week.
“I’m from Mexico and you can taste that it’s really good, authentic, homemade food,” Moore said. “You can’t find that anywhere else.”
Gove likes that the food comes out fast — fitting into her half-hour lunch break.
Neither had heard the restaurant is closing.
“I’m sure a lot of people will be disappointed,” Moore said. “That’s it … I’m moving,” she joked.
At the beginning of the month, Moreno ( super burrito ) said DesertScape issued a 30-day notice to move out because the space would no longer be used for food service.
DesertScape was a common name last night at the UGB meeting, there were 1/2 a dozen poor white trash kids pleading the council to approve DesertScape Eastside UGB expansion. It's really quite interesting that on the one hand DesertScape can shutdown the best restaurant in the city, and on the ohther hand hire white trash inarticulate kids to represent them at the City Hall. But these kids albeit in their 20's or early 30's dressed liked Bend, but by legal obligation they had to say whom they represented.
Let it all be KNOW here Hereafter that DesertScape is Bend public enemy NUMBER ONE.
Desertscape Properties LLC
2669 NE Twin Knolls Dr # 201, Bend - (541) 318-4205
Desertscape 920 Bond
920 NW Bond St, Bend - (541) 388-5490
Lets step into the wayback machine just a moment. To analyze those that killed our beloved super-burrito. Note from this time forward the mention of the vile name "desert-scape' should cause one to vomit on those that utter the word.
Local investment company buys D.H. Sphier Building
By Eric Flowers / The Bulletin
Published: January 10. 2006 5:00AM
A local investment company that has purchased two buildings in downtown Bend in the past nine months bought a third building last week.
Deschutes County records show that Bend-based DesertScape acquired the historic D.H. Sphier Building, 901 Bond St., for $3.65 million. The sale closed Jan. 3.
The building, which is located at the corner of Minnesota Avenue and Bond Street, houses three restaurants, an antique store, hair salon and a jeweler.
Based on Deschutes County property records, DesertScape paid roughly $521 per square foot for the Sphier Building, slightly less than the roughly $650 per square foot it paid for a pair of properties down the street at 1028 and 1030 Bond St.
Still, those numbers represent a dramatic increase over then-record sales prices recorded in 2004 when downtown buildings were trading hands for between $220 and $375 per square foot. Downtown prices in 2003 were still below $200 per square foot in some areas.
"It's a great building," said Craig Glazier, a partner in DesertScape. "It came up for sale and we bought it. We don't have any plans to redevelop it at this point. And anything we do 10 years down the road, if it ever gets to that point, will maintain the historic character of that asset."
Tenants in the Sphier Building wonder if the sale could translate into higher lease rates that would squeeze them out of downtown.
"We know that we won't be here," said Wendy Sexton, who has operated Trivia Antiques at the corner of Bond Street and Minnesota Avenue since 1984 and believes the sales price could lead to a rent hike.
Sexton said she has two more years left on her lease with an option for an additional five, but thinks the agreement could be broken by the new owners.
She pays $2,672 per month after agreeing to a $1,000-per-month increase last year to keep her space. She's concerned that could rise again.
Glazier said DesertScape has no plans to break leases or increase monthly rents in the Sphier Building.
"We're not sitting here looking to wring an extra $200 out of the tenants," he said. "The building pays for itself. It's a long-term investment ... I hope someday to leave it as an asset to my kids."
Under building-height limits approved by the city in 2004, DesertScape could theoretically take the Sphier Building up to 55 feet.
Any large-scale renovation of the single-story building, which was built in 1917 and once was the home of the Bend Post Office, would have to be reviewed and approved by the city of Bend and the Deschutes County Historic Landmarks Commission.
But a makeover, including an additional story, is not outside the realm of possibility, provided the design meets historic guidelines, said Pat Kliewer, Deschutes County historic resources planner.
The building is the latest downtown acquisition for DesertScape, which is operated by Glazier and his partner, David Shelofsky, a native of Half Moon Bay, Calif.
In April 2005, the firm purchased St. Clair Place, a boutique mall across the street from the Sphier Building, for $6.2 million.
In June, DesertScape partnered with St. Clair Place developer Doug Knight on a $2.6 million deal for the properties at 1028 and 1030 Bond St. Since that acquisition, one of the building's longtime tenants, Yoko's Japanese restaurant, has left, citing an inability to afford new lease terms.
Recently, Knight shared plans with the city of Bend for the redevelopment of the Yoko's site with a four-story, mixed-use residential, retail and office building. Those plans also include the possibility of two additional floors later.
But a recent decision by the City Council to lower the building height from 70 feet to 60 feet on the east side of Bond Street could affect the final design.
article tools print article tools email article tools comment
Talbot. H. James. My name is Jim Talbot, and I'm the principal owner in the Desertscape. Development LLC Partnership.
Jim Talbot, representing Desertscape Development LLC, appeared before the Planning Commission ... Wal-Mart took some of their tenants, but they have been working hard to
bring in quality tenants
*
It appears that Talbot while principle of Desertscape is a front for Walmart. Note that desertscape is also the principle in the super-walmart in Bend, DBA desertscape.
Ergo, Super-Burrito was destroyed to put a walmart downtown? Or walmart is so pathetically rich they can a large portion of downtown for $3M just to be mean?
ok, confirmed, Mr. Talbot aka desertscape is a front for walmart, talbutt seems go around and be the mob enforcer for new walmart locations. Holy shit a super walmart downtown.
***
. Jean Reniker, 1278 West 1875 South,
approached the Commission saying Mr. Talbot came to their home the previous weekend informing them he
wanted to tear up their property along the fence. They have an RV pad and was concerned about the damage
to that pad as well as to their home’s foundation, which is brand new. She felt Mr. Talbot knew this was
coming for two years and that the City should have put those drains in before allowing the construction of
their houses. She was concerned with traffic since their home backs up to 1700 South, and they see the traffic
problems already. In fact, they were unable to get out of their subdivision to attend this meeting without
traveling in the opposite direction first and then turning around. With another commercial property on that
street, along with restaurants, she worried the area would turn into another Riverdale Road. She referred to
the beautiful wall dividing Wal-Mart from the adjacent neighborhoods as well as the nearby park.
At the beginning of the month, Moreno ( super burrito ) said DesertScape (WALMART) issued a 30-day notice to move out because the space would no longer be used for food service.
*
Why would walmart want to put a little mexican burrito shop down?
bilbo said:
In 1965, John D. Gray, founder of Omark Industries, and Donald V. McCallum, a Portland attorney, announced their plan to build a gem among Oregon resorts. They gave the resort the name Sunriver to reflect the most characteristic features of the area
*
Yup, John Gray was the principle behind SB100 and the primary monopolist thereafter for Oregon Resorts.
July 27, 2007
bilbo said:
Land Use Planning Information for the Citizens of Oregon, by John D. Gray and Katie Shriver (cover page only) - Becky Steckler (1 page, available from DLCD)
*
J.D. Gray the father of Sunriver, was also the father of SB100 ( LCDC ).
Once again, HBM is proved to be an incompetent moron.
Before J.D. Gray got into the land planning business, and created LCDC and helped Hector McPherson Pass a little boiler-plate called SB100, from florida and Hawaii, he was a lucky-logger.
***
ALONG THE OREGON® WAY
In 1947, the Oregon Saw Chain Manufacturing Corporation was founded with four employees and one product. Today, known as the Oregon Cutting Systems Group of Blount, Inc., the same company is part of a corporation with more than 3,000 employees and thousands of products.
Here are some of the people, products, and events that have marked the history of the world's number-one name in chainsaw accessories--Oregon brand.
A Better Way of Woodcutting
Logger/inventor Joseph Buford Cox was chopping firewood one chilly autumn day in 1946 when he paused for a moment to examine the curious activity in a tree stump. A timber-beetle larva, the size of a man's forefinger, was easily chewing its way through sound timber, going both across and with the wood grain at will.
Joe was an experienced operator of the gas-powered saws used in those days, but the cutting chain was a problem. It required a lot of filing and maintenance time. "I spent several months looking for nature's answer to the problem," Joe recalled. "I found it in the larva of the timber beetle."
Joe knew if he could duplicate the larva's alternating C-shaped jaws in steel, it just might catch on. He went to work in the basement shop of his Portland, Oregon home and came up with a revolutionary new chain. The first Cox Chipper Chain was produced and sold in November, 1947. The basic design of Joe's original chain is still widely used today and represents one of the biggest influences in the history of timber harvesting.
In 1948, two significant things happened. First, the company moved from Joe's basement into a bigger facility (a 5,000-square-foot garage). Second, Joe hired his sixteenth employee, John D. Gray.
John was 28 and a recent graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business. When John joined the company, his original office chair was a nail keg. In spite of the humble beginnings, John said, "I like the challenge of being in on the ground floor of something so exciting with so much obvious potential." Eventually, John would see the business grow from $300 thousand to $300 million.
In 1951, sales exceeded $1 million. The company became a multinational corporation in 1952 by acquiring Planer Chain Ltd. of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
In 1953, Joe sold the company to John Gray and vigorous growth continued. The company moved into its first bona fide plant in 1955, a 65,000-square-foot facility in Portland that later served as the administration building. A new plant was built for the Canadian operation, and John Gray made a sales trip to Sweden, where he found the first European customer for Oregon-brand chain.
In 1959, the company moved into international markets, and made its first application for a patent on guard links for saw chain.
Today, guard links are usually associated with safety and kickback reduction. But in 1959, these original guard links were only expected to reduce the frequent hooking and grabbing of small brush. After a period of use, pulpwood producers observed an unexpected benefit--fewer chain saw accidents. A number of these companies mandated the use of the new chain.
In 1963, a remarkable new saw and new chain initiated the modern era of lightweight, high-speed, direct-drive chain saws. The saw was the Homelite XL12, and the chain was Oregon® 72D, the first 3/8" pitch chain specifically built for such a saw. Both products were immensely successful, and derivative chains based on the original 72D design are still widely used today.
A Safer Way of Woodcutting
The late sixties and early seventies were marked by research and development toward reducing the hazards of bar-nose kickback. In 1970, development of a kickback test machine began. In 1972, development was finalized when the third-generation kickback test machine was completed.
One Thing I wanted to finish as its getting late, but last night at the UGB meeting, there were lots of guys from 'desertscape' at the meeting, they were the only ones plugging the council to go east. Mostly they want a sewage main along hamby, and they said they wanted a development, but retail, and/or industrial would be ok. Now that its clear that they're a front for walmart, and I'm sure the council KNOWS THIS. Then we can clearly see that our new super walmart will be somewhere out by St. Charles.
That said the current UGB has two main points.
1.) Traffic, make it better not worse.
2.) Sewage, make it travel downhill, to treatment.
WRT traffic east is already beyond repair, enough said. WRT to sewage east of 27th goes downhill, in the wrong direction, nobody wants pump stations because when they fail that means your little tract home back fills. Not a nice picture. The Dalles is having this problem right now, to say the place smells like shit is saying it lightly, the fact is you don't want pumping stations, because they fail.
In summary its pretty clear that Walmart has bought downtown, and ran out super-burrito, thus they're now public enemy #1, secondly they have a bunch of young guys trying to convince the city to move the UGB east, which just happens to be land owned by walmat ( desertscape ).
I am not from Bend, but may be moving there and read this blog often.
I cannot follow some of the issues posted and wonder of someone could help.
Where was Les Schwab trying to do something and what were they trying to do?
It seems to be the opinion of some that there could be a Super Wal Mart trying to go in somewhere? Where?
Thank you
Scwab is moving headquarters to Bend.
Bend has about the grossest Wal-Mart I've ever been in. It pales in comparison to the Wal-Marts in/near Eugene and Portland. I don't know why they don't just redo the current one, as they did in Eugene on West 11th. But apparently they want a whole new site, and that's making them an easy target for Wal-Mart haters. I expect to have to drive to Redmond when theirs opens.
It seems to be the opinion of some that there could be a Super Wal Mart trying to go in somewhere? Where?
*
People have been fighting super walmart for years in Bend. That said many new coming cali-bagging parasites want one, because the first thing they complain after moving to bend is there is NO shopping, which is there basis of life.
Old-timers generally don't want super-walmart.
The city will MOST likely head east of 27th & Hwy20 for large box retail.
The majority of the speakers at the recent Bend Urban Growth boundary talk were from "Desertscape", speaking about moving the UGB east around Hamby, the problem is infra-structure. The problem is gravity out that way shit flows towards the badlands and NOT towards bend. If shit is allowed to flow towards the badlands, then they'll have to be massive holding tanks and pumping stations.
Redmond already has a super-walmart planned and approved, and there is already a big walmart on the south of end bend, which cannot go further south because of the lava.
Given the "desertscape" spokespeople DEMANDING the UGB go east, and given that desertscape is a front for walmart, then its pretty damn obvious that the super walmart will be out by Hamby east of 27th, or closer toward 27th & hwy 20.
The more interesting question is why does Walmart own so much downtown property? This could be leverage issue, .e.g. trades, or bribes, or perhaps an urban walmart? Given that walmart is where America shops it would certainly fit to have an urband walmart in downtown bend, albeit this would NOT be a super-walmart.
The two primary growth issues faciing Bend are Traffic & SHIT.
The traffic must flow so people can shop, and the shit must flow downhill from source to the central waste station.
These are the ONLY two issues facing Bend Urban Growth, and only two things that criteria mandates. The problem with traffic is NOBODY wants to pay for it. The problem with sewage is nobody wants to pay for it.
Eventually we'll face "The Dalles" problem, huge pools of shit baking in the sun during the summer with NO where to go, because literally we're generating MORE shit than we can dehydrate and pack to Arlington.
Bend is ran by Development and Building interests for years they have NOT been forced to pay for sewage infrastructure which costs $50k per house, they have only been paying $12k per house. The time to pay has now already passed, which is why we need an immediate halt to new building until a new finance system (SDC) is created to pay for the shit that we're already generating.
Bend has about the grossest Wal-Mart I've ever been in. It pales in comparison to the Wal-Marts in/near Eugene and Portland. I don't know why they don't just redo the current one, as they did in Eugene on West 11th. But apparently they want a whole new site,
*
The land where the present Bend walmart is, is now quite valuable and close-in. It would be far better to build the super walmart at place of cheap land.
My guess is that there will be a 'east-side' bypass just past china-hat road that meets 27th, and continues up towards deschutes market road to I-97, and that way people coming from la-pine and from burns can visit the super-walmart. Then they can sell the land south of town and make some serious money, as that is a prime place for auto retail, or RV's, ... being right on the FWY, you can have a big box anywhere out in the desert.
Regarding why people hate walmart, that is a religious thought like why do people hate the baby jeezus, we don't answer theological questions in this forum.
Recently Walmart got caught locking Mexicans in their stores from midight to 6am, so why did Walmart put little Super-Burrito out of business?
It all makes no sense, especially given that latinos are the future of Bend. Latinos are going to save real estate, and they'll be the fastest growing population, which means pamper sales,
they want a whole new site, and that's making them an easy target for Wal-Mart haters. I expect to have to drive to Redmond when theirs opens.
*
It used to be that central-oregon was Les Schwab country, but in the future it will be Walmart country.
We should simple declare that Bend is Walmart, and build a huge downtown Walmart, and build huge RV parking centers ten story's high, and let the people camp in their RV so everybody can have a view of Central Oregon.
We all can live in Walmart and never go outside, except to our RV.
It should be interesting given that Walmart is now a company primarily distributing Chinese goods, as the quality continues to deteriorate, will Walmart go back to made in USA? As the dollar collapses will people still afford chinese goods?
Where was Les Schwab trying to do something and what were they trying to do?
Les was trying to create a new breed of people, he cross bred white folk from la-pine, and white folk from sand-point, Idaho. The plan was a new kind of tire changer, the project was a failure and the people were released. Most of them become builders in Bend. Some became cops.
The main camp for the breeding was up near Antelope, Oregon.
I hope this answer the what and where.
I keep waiting for BendBust to bring up the city counselor who wants to ban all fireworks except the official licensed ones, but it keeps not happening. BendBust where are you?
Realtor Peter Storton, who launched the Sisters UGB meeting, said that the city has the same kind of obligations to its customers as any private-sector business.
And then in Bend
WHO DO BEND'S COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES WORK FOR?
You decide. Developers pay their salaries through application fees. Their sense of ownership is so great one demanded a refund because he claimed Community Development employees couldn't prove they worked hard enough on his behalf.
Planning is NOT a service for the rich, it is a gatekeeper to keep the environment from being destroyed. The problem for the past twenty years in Bend, is that developers proposed and built, and filled out paper later. The City NEVER enforced LCDC law ( SB100 1972 ), the State didn't care because Salem can give a shit about eastern oregon.
The bend developers in their WHOLE life never had to worry about state law, but NOW, guess whats happening? A few lawyers are starting to force the Salem AG to enforce the law.
The BULL is gone, bought by Walmart. Gone in just a few days the BULL and Super Burrito. Bend is simply dissapearing.
“Bush Visits Bend, Fondles Small Child,”
No Bend Bulletin, No Cry
By Joseph Friedrichs, 7-28-07
Not that I would ever consider spending 50 cents to purchase a Saturday edition of the Bend Bulletin, but I couldn’t help but notice this morning that all of the paper’s newsstands downtown were empty.
This observation led me to believe one of two things occurred. The first possibility was that some serious, and I’m talking like “Tsunami Destroys Oregon Coast” or “Bush Visits Bend, Fondles Small Child,” type news had broken. The other, and more likely of the two things to create empty Bulletin stands, was that they had a printing problem.
They did.
All over town the kind, lulled and mostly well-aged readers of the Bulletin are having a terrible Saturday. No one in the coffee shops or diners across town had a copy of the July 28, 2007, Bend Bulletin. Stacks of Friday’s papers were scattered about, but reading a dated newspaper is about as fulfilling as getting taken to dinner by the Bulletin Editorial Board.
“May I have another glass of wine?”
“No, you may not.”
My friend Al Borlin, who has the investigative instincts of a 1970s Washington Post reporter, informed me that the Bulletin did print at least some copies today, with a strange message across the flag explaining “mechanical difficulties.”
Borlin told me he saw a Saturday paper in front of Deschutes Brewery downtown, but when I arrived to grab it for research purposes, it had already vanished.
My next move was to call the Bulletin office and try to get even a brief explanation as to why there were no papers. After repeated phone calls kept giving me a busy signal, my patience ran out and I headed back to the streets.
I ended up at the great Bend Public Library. The library always has two copies of the Bulletin on hand, and sure enough the flawed papers Borlin had told me about were there. When I snatched the paper off the shelf, I nearly buckled over with laughter. The weight of the Bulletin reminded me of my high school paper. It contained only one section, with 16 pages of mostly national news.
On top of page one read: NOTE TO READERS, Due to mechanical difficulties, The Bulletin was unable to publish a complete paper today. Please see the index at right for today’s news content. Delivery may also have been affected. For a more complete Saturday edition, including advertising and real estate listings, visit http://www.bendbulletin.com The Bulletin regrets any inconvenience this may have caused readers.
And that’s it. Today is the day where the Bend Bulletin does not really exist. Not the way THEY would like it to, anyhow. And although the initial shockwaves of not reading the Saturday Bend Bulletin may have been difficult to digest for some, in the long run a few Bulletin-less days should prove to be just fine.
Oh, and if you want to hop online and read the complete Bulletin as they suggest doing, it will cost you. To boost circulation numbers, the Bulletin charges readers to subscribe to their online edition. So you might as well grab your credit card now if you want the July 28 edition of the Bulletin.
I keep waiting for Bendbb to bring up the city counselor who wants to ban all fireworks except the official licensed ones, but it keeps not happening - IHTBYB
Its a public safety issue. Ever since bendbb thought it was cute to put firecrackers up his boyfriends butt's the city thought it would be in the interest of public health to deny explosives to adult children. If a few of the Bend Bloggers had a little self restraint it wouldn't have come to this.
Regarding this subject. In our trailer park for two weeks before and two weeks after there were continual explosions. The dogs were barking non-stop for almost a month, needless to say the lack of sleep made many bloggers angry.
In the best interest to the blogging community all fireworks in Bend should be banned. The use should be a $500 fine.
$429500 MUST SELL THIS WEEKEND! OPEN HOUSE
Real Craiglist ad!!!
Post a Comment