Great coverage, Carla, of this important issue on resorts.

Here's how the Planning Director (career staffer, formerly planner in Aspen, CO) describes the stakes for today's meeting:

"The purpose of this agenda item is to further clarify Board direction on the Comprehensive Plan update. One issue the Planning Commission and staff seek direction on is how the Comprehensive Plan update should move forward. The Planning Commission may discuss and vote on whether the draft Plan should be scrapped (deemed “dead on arrival”) and re-written at its next regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, November 5. Three Commissioners do not believe any element of the current draft Plan can be salvaged. If the Planning Commission votes to initiate a re-write of the draft Plan, and the Board supports the Commission, then the publicly noticed work sessions and open houses on the current draft Plan should be suspended and/or completely revised. A new schedule would be established for the Planning Commission and staff to re-write the Plan update. Key issues with this revised approach include: (a) significant public notification has been provided on the work sessions and open houses; (b) the Planning Commission has just begun to express its views on the substance of the current draft Plan; and (c) public comments have indicated support for elements of the draft Plan and/or provided specific input on how it should be revised and improved. Alternatively, the current approach – Planning Commission work sessions and open houses to gain input on the current draft Plan – may be continued as scheduled through January 7, 2010. Then, the Planning Commission and staff would conduct public work sessions to edit the draft Plan as necessary to prepare a revised Plan for consideration at public hearings. However, the key issue with this approach is whether the Planning Commission supports it."

Thnx for shedding some light on the inner workings of our county. We'll see if public participation really matters or not today.

Carla

This meeting isn't news here. The county has been talking about it for a while. They have been talking about his for a while. We have know about this for a while.

Why don't you just worry about portland and stay away from here.

" It can't happen here!"

Deschutes County has already been pretty much trashed and ruined- Now the buzzards are moving in to pick over what's left of the carcus- they all dream at night of the rebirth of the real estate boom but in daylight reality the vacant suburbs and empty subdivisions is impossible to escape- the best thing going for preservationists and rural advocates at this point is the flat economy major developments are likely DOA at this point. The Deschutes Co. Commission is a collection of neanderthal knuckledraggers and there is little chance that they will somehow see the light. This speaks again to the fact that the so-called "destination resort" laws need to be repealed or completely revamped and that high value resource lands need additional protections from the inherent greed in local planning and a political system that turns the hen house over to the fox.

andy: "Why don't you just worry about portland and stay away from here."

There you go again Carla caring about someplace other than Portland- and talk about the urban rural divide- (speaking of Deschutes Co. I use the term "rural" with a grain of salt.)

Now I think they really only want Portlanders to stay away from the planning meetings- and all of the yuppies need not be alarmed- I'm sure you will all be welcomed at Mt. Batchelor and there will be plenty of parking space for your Mercedes at Sunriver.

I thought it was the anti-growth people that wanted Portland to stay away...

Hey Carla is you want to see some great Central Oregon Democracy in progress you ought to be following the fight in Madras between citizen actvists and city hall over Friendship Park, a center for the soccer families, primarily Hispanic, where the city wants to build a new city hall and police station- you can read some of the story here at http://www.madrasmatters.org/community-blog but don't look for a lot of coverage of the meetings in the local media that seem to be expeiencing media blackout. Too bad there's no reporting- you have the city councilors screaming in the faces of the activists that they hate them, you got the up ended agendas, you got the city manager bald face lying to the public- just priceless.

"Once again it seems that local government in Central Oregon is steamrolling over the concerns of large numbers of local residents when it comes to issues of land use and destination resorts."

What's your proof, aside from conjecture? (And I'm not just talking about 100 people showing up a meeting, or a few vocal groups from C.O. showing up in Salem.)

I think it's interesting that you write this stuff as if you live over here and understand the intricacies of the people and government. That would be like me making assertions about political issues in Portland when I DON'T LIVE THERE.

I respect your opinion, Carla, and I think it's admirable that you want to protect the natural and scenic areas on this side of the Cascades - as do I! The reality is that there is a large contingent of pro-development (such a naughty word!) folks that live and advocate in Central Oregon.

More than disagreeing with your opinion, I'm tired of the pictures you paint of our local government agencies over here. I work with most of them on a wide-range of topics and find most of them to be honest, ethical and intelligent people. Most of what you write is negative and assumes unethical or behind-the-door dealings; or that there's this railroad mentality over here. That's certainly not the case.

It's always easy to take that course of thought when a government body doesn't vote your way.

SunRiver has some of the best golf courses on the West Coast and I would hate to see them ruined with further development that would mess up the views from the golf course or the surrounding homes and condos. Particularly Crosswater, which is as close to Paradise as I expect to see in this lifetime. So I join in Carla's plea to avoid paving Paradise.

And in keeping with Kari's disclaimer policy, I own a home there but am otherwise unbiased!

Thank you for the post, Carla. Those of us who are tired of developers plundering Deschutes County appreciate all the help we can get.

Jack: Make that for the Deschutes County Commissioners two Republicans and a DINO; i.e. Alan Unger who served for several years as mayor of Redmond and as a facilitator for sprawl in Redmond.

Carla: I appreciate your recommending getting in touch with Commissioner Unger, but anyone doing so will be wasting his or her time. You may as well go over to Egypt and talk to a sphinx to get President Mubarak to give up his dictatorship.

Elections do have consequences. Commissioner Unger was elected a year ago and in the opinion of many locals who had been paying attention he was a worse choice than the pro-development commissioner he replaced. At least the former would listen to his critics and consider what they had to say. Unger is more like a Manchurian candidate programmed to do whatever the developers want.

Yes the county commissioners are elected but that does not mean the represent public opinion- it means they were elected that is all. There is a big disconnect between these cliques and the public- the commissioner campaigns do not revolve around a serious debate of these or any issues. You can bet the developers are always smart enough to insert themselves and their donations into the mix and understand the benefits that flow from their involvement. When the public has a chance to express their views they have been decidedly less pro-development than the politicians- witness the vote in Crook Co. to limit destination resorts. Another example would be the voter revolt in Jefferson Co. that effectively killed the Cogentrix Natural Gas electric power plant as supported by the County Commissioners. Anyone that tries to equate the views of the County Commissioners with public opinion is off in fantasy land. I'm sure Mr. Roberts will readily admit that just because someone gets elected does not mean they are right.

Jack, now that you've got it straight.....

Thank you very much. I am wonderring if i can share your article in the bookmarks of society， Then more friends can talk about this problem.

We have seen, especially over the last ten years since deregulation of the banking and insurance industries, how collusion with corporations and politicians (enabled by an apathetic and indifferent public) can be disastrous to the nation.

(In this regard, I second John Silvertooth's comments on elected officials.)

This same scenario plays out at the state, county and city levels. One of the big problems in Oregon is collusion of the growth and development troika (developers, builders and real estate) with politicians. At the state level they arranged a mandate for cities to provide a 20-year supply of land for growth, whether the cities might want that or not. At the same time the state placed a limit on how much cities could demand from builders in the form of system development charges (SDCs) to pay for infrastructure (streets, sewers, water, etc.) that would be required as a result of new construction.

Cities, in collusion with developers and builders, commonly collected less in SDCs than they were allowed by law and much less than was necessary to pay for required infrastructure. SDCs are not allowed for new school construction. So who pays for this new infrastructure and these new schools? Mostly people who had nothing to do with creating these needs including, in many cases, people who had already paid for existing infrastructure and schools and were retired on fixed and limited incomes.

That is just part of the problem with the threat we are likely to see from elected commissioners and their appointees to planning commissions in Deschutes and other counties. The other problems are the usual risks to the land, wildlife, rivers, water and air that come with unsustainable and uncontrolled development.

I wonder what the growth troika has in mind for Deschutes County over the next 20 or 30 years. Developments and shopping malls along the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway, Smith Rock and Paulina Lake?

Jack,

Now that isn't fair picking on Carla like that. She isn't bright enought to engage you in a battle of wits. She is a fairly simple person who just knows that developers are bad and Dems are good. Don't go mixing her up with logic. She knows what she knows and it is too late for her to learn anything new.

Well, so much for the Metolius being so unique that no new resorts could go there. They can go elsewhere.

Apparently, all 8,000 square kilometers (3,000 square miles) of Deschutes County are also just as precious.

"Apparently, all 8,000 square kilometers (3,000 square miles) of Deschutes County are also just as precious."

It's not so much a case of 3,000 square miles being so precious but more a case of what damage and other problems can result from unrestrained, unsustainable and unethical development in a hundred-or-so square miles.

"I just think that would be a lot more honest that saying, "Look! The planning commission and county commissioners are overturning the will of the people as determined by unelected county staff!"

How about they are overturning an impartial and rational assessment that is in the long-term interests of the county for a biased revision in favor of the short-term interests of the growth and development troika?

Re: "paradise."

There are many very nice aspects to Deschutes County but paradise it ain't. The essence of the post is one example proving this point.

Thank you for the common sense Jack Roberts

There was a related meeting this evening at the county offices. I didn't learn about it until it was under way or possibly over. Perhaps, we will get the skinny on this later.

Carla, I've been here in Bend all week. There is nary a peep about your blown up concerns. Once again, you claim to have "contacts" in the area that are feeding you accurate information. I suggest that they have high filtration units garbling transmission of 411.

Its a good thing that Salem blew their wad on the Metolius and will be unable to meddle in Deschutes County.

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