This article was published on: 07/18/12 12:00 AM
Published: July 18. 2012 4:00AM PST
Hooray for my new best old friend Dennis Flannery for his letter bringing to light the folly of the Mirror Pond dredging problem. I have lived here for over 20 years and have never seen the “gee whiz, golly” approach to a problem more apparent than in this case. The pond is in the city — fix it! We don’t need or want another “study” to the tune of $400,000 or $500,000. It’s mud. Aren’t river deltas pretty fertile? Sell it as topsoil! There is probably enough there to fund the entire project! My God, I read with amazement in the newspaper that Bend has had an “unexpected windfall of revenue” recently and that, golly, we need to decide what to spend it on. Certainly the police need some vehicles and there are road repairs which need to be commenced, but what of the leftover million or so? Stop the “woe is me” mentality, take some of this windfall money and get this thing started. It’s embarrassing how long this discussion has gone on.
Mirror Pond is the crown jewel of our community and it’s time we got this project under way! Let’s hold a bake sale. We recently started construction on three (or four, I lose count) roundabouts, and after all, they didn’t cost us anything. I can even suggest contacting the folks at Lake Wildwood, Calif. (near Sacramento), for help in solving this problem. Theirs is a similar problem and they just deal with it.
John Speckmann
Bend