Bend is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States—yet people here often wonder why certain developments take so long to get off the ground, or why a project not favored by the public got off the ground anyway. In this podcast, Russ Grayson of the City of Bend discusses Oregon's land use policy, the barriers and limitations to developing housing and other properties, the City's challenges in keeping its Community Development Department fully staffed and much more.

Kate Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Deschutes River Conservancy, talks with Source Publisher Aaron Switzer about the new water bank pilot project for the North Unit Irrigation District, which allows farmers to obtain water from other water rights holders. The program is aimed at easing some of the pain of ongoing drought for farmers who saw field lay fallow in 2020 and 2021 due to irrigation shortages.

Kim Gammond joins the Bend Don't Break podcast this week, talking with the Source about her vision for the City Club of Central Oregon, its mission, future topics of conversation and the challenges the organization has faced in creating programming around community conversations during a global pandemic.

Kim Gammond is the Executive Director at the City Club of Central Oregon. A proud graduate of Bend Senior High School, she continued her education at the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science and Master of Science in Communication from Purdue University. Prior to City Club, Kim was the Communications and Public Affairs Director at the Central Oregon Association of REALTORS. Kim spent ten years working in fundraising and event management at the Pacific Forest Trust, the High Desert Museum and her own company, Specialized Events. She is a previous recipient of Accomplished Under 40 from Cascade Business News and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Redmond City Council for her work on the Redmond Centennial.

Kim is deeply involved in our community having served on the Bend2030 Leadership Alliance, Bend Midmarket Housing Workgroup Steering Committee, Bend Livability Conference Steering Committee, OSU Cascades Community Integration Committee and as University of Oregon Alumni Chapter President.

While not working hard, she enjoys swimming, cross-country skiing, reading and traveling alongside her husband, young son and a dog of indeterminant breed.

Another skier dies after falling in a tree well at Mt. Bachelor, and omicron rages through Oregon—though it's proving to be less deadly than past variants. Get it all in this week's Source Weekly Update podcast.

We look back at this year's top stories in this Source Weekly Update Podcast!

In part three of a three-part series of interviews on approaches to homelessness in Bend, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz talks about how officers respond to calls involving people experiencing homelessness, how that work impacts levels of service elsewhere and much more.

A fundraiser in honor of a fallen Bend kayaker, a new space for El Sancho and the rollout of a partnership between the sheriff's office and an addiction treatment center... all in this week's Source Weekly Update podcast.

A plea in the Barry Washington, Jr. murder case, monitoring Bend's sewers for the omicron variant and an effort to assess the impact of short-term rentals on home prices in Bend, all in this week's podcast.

The advent of a new COVID variant, more delays for the ski season and an upcoming legislative session to manage the flood of renters seeking to avoid eviction, all in this week's Source Weekly Update podcast. (Editor's note: this version of the story on the Omicron variant stated that the variant originated in South Africa—a fact we have found to be erroneous. The variant was first discovered by South African researchers, but it is not confirmed to have originated there. We have updated the web version of that story to remove that detail.)

Finding solutions for the unhoused is a hot topic in Bend and elsewhere, as housing gets more expensive and income inequality continues to grow. In Central Oregon, the Homeless Leadership Coalition is at the forefront of the effort to find solutions and to support those experiencing homelessness. In this podcast, Eliza Wilson, a member of the Homeless Leadership Coalition and a program manager for Grandma's House talks about her own experiences as a young person experiencing homelessness, the misconceptions people have about the unhoused population and how local people can support their work.