Source Weekly Update Source Weekly - Bend, Oregon

On this week's update, wildfire evacuees are attempting to emerge back into everyday life. Learn how Bend local businesses are supporting the victims and how you can contribute as well.

For this week’s “Bend Don’t Break” podcast we talk with Ed Keith, who has worked as the county forester for Deschutes County since 2012. Keith traces the history of forest management in Central Oregon, including the impact of grazing and timber harvest, and describes how decades of fire suppression in Oregon’s forests disrupted the natural cycles of wildfire in the region.

On this week's Source Update, we are discussing the raging Oregon wildfires. How were they originated? How can we prevent them? What will happen to the locals?

John Hummel has been serving as the Deschutes County District Attorney since he was first elected in 2014. Before that, he served on the Bend City Council for six years, and then resigned in 2007 to earn his Masters in public policy from Johns Hopkins University. He then worked in Liberia, Africa, for two and a half years as the Country Representative for the Carter Center, the former president’s peace and health organization.

Hummel has taken a proactive stance on criminal justice reform and created a number of programs designed to reduce rates of crime recidivism in Deschutes County. He began with a collaborative approach, bringing community members together into a committee to discuss ways his office could prevent crime before it happened. Out of those meetings, Hummel made it a priority to help people suffering from addiction by providing an opportunity for drug offenders to see a doctor who would then determine the right pathway to treatment or mental health interventions.

Hummel discusses this and more on this week’s episode of “Bend Don’t Break” hosted by the Source Weekly’s publisher, Aaron Switzer.

On this Weeks Update, The Bend City Council moves forward with an ordinance to create a restricted parking district in a small section of the Old Bend neighborhood.

For this week’s Bend Don’t Break podcast we talk with Stefanie Garber, the superintendent and elementary school principal for the Culver School District. Garber recently wrote a letter to Gov. Kate Brown arguing that local communities and school boards should decide when to open schools in their own communities. She asked that the state eliminate the “one size fits all” mandates for schools.