OPB’s First Look: Growing Sisters

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Good morning, Northwest.

Sisters is under pressure to approve an expansion of its urban growth boundary as it attempts to meet growing demand for housing.

OPB’s Kathryn Styer Martínez reports on affordability and the race to improve it in the Central Oregon city to start today’s newsletter.

In other news, a candidate for Deschutes County sheriff faces allegations of dishonesty from an outside investigation.

Here’s your First Look at Wednesday’s news.

— Bradley W. Parks

Top story

Sisters approaches final hurdles to approve urban growth boundary amendment map

Under the noonday sun, Ben Walsh gazed across the meadow where he grew up outside Sisters and pictured an elementary school and homes alongside open fields.

“I think the new elementary school should be right there,” he said of the 20 acres his family owns as hawks cried overhead.

Whether Walsh gets his wish will depend on the outcome of a complicated battle about how this small Central Oregon city should grow. It’s one of the fastest-growing places in the region and needs about 2,000 more homes within the next two decades.

Planning has been underway for years to make way for more housing, but decisions about what land to use for that growth — and who will benefit from those decisions — have divided the city, slowed the work and cost the city money it doesn’t have.

Now, with a deadline looming, Sisters is racing to get approval for its first such expansion in roughly two decades. (Kathryn Styer Martínez)

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3 things to know

• OPB Exclusive: For the second time in as many elections, a candidate for sheriff in Central Oregon’s largest county is facing allegations of dishonesty — and possibly termination — unless he wins the election and takes office first. (Jen Baires)
• A federal judge in Oregon is considering whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers violated his preliminary order by arresting people without a warrant and failing to document it. (Joni Auden Land)
• A Southwest Washington lawmaker has proposed a bill to create state oversight of above-ground chemical storage tanks in the aftermath of a deadly spill at a Longview paper mill this year. (Erik Neumann)

Northwest headlines

• Washington County commissioner decries ‘culture of fear’ cultivated by recently resigned chair (Holly Bartholomew)
• Portland police chief accused of violating state law by criticizing city councilor’s past tweets (Alex Zielinski)
• Oregon secretary of state encourages voters to verify authenticity of election mail (Shaanth Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle)
• After new federal requirements, changes coming to the Oregon Health Plan (Rebecca Hansen-White, KLCC)
• Microsoft lays off 268 Xbox employees in Washington state (Monica Nickelsburg, KUOW)
• Fire end season with 90-82 overtime win over Valkyries (Anne M. Peterson, AP)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

• New album from Portland artist inspired by birds and birdwatching
• Sisters resident is finalist in national Neighbor of the Year contest

One more look

Everything but the buck: At the Pendleton Round-up, every corner bursts with life

Throughout the grounds of the Pendleton Round-up, “Let ‘Er Buck” is plastered everywhere. The iconic slogan of Oregon’s largest rodeo is painted on nearly half of the hand-built wooden chutes, stalls that cowboys burst out of on bucking broncs and burly bulls.

It’s the namesake of a seating section inside the Pendleton Round-up Grandstand and a statue just outside the arena. It’s a phrase yelled hundreds of times during the four-day event that brings upwards of 50,000 rodeo fans to the small city that sits below the Blue Mountains.

But just outside the arena’s high-octane competition, every corner of the grounds bursts with life.

This little world — containing everything but the buck itself — exists on the periphery of the Round-up, but help define the legendary event all the same. (Eli Imadali)

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