Bend has a new water system, after years of controversy and millions of dollars invested.

Flint, Michigan, has a water health hazard mess that reaches to the highest state government levels.

The importance of water cannot be taken for granted, nor should it be underestimated. Water is life, in a real sense.

Controversy over water rights and water’s importance is a given under our system of government. How much money should be spent to correct or update water systems falls right into the ideological debates in our political system.

But I wouldn’t give up our system of government for one controlled by a dictator, would you?

What makes our system work well, in my opinion, is vigorous debate, comparison between cost and taxes to meet those costs, and feedback from the public about what is needed and wanted.

It used to be that compromise and good hard work with both Republican and Democratic representatives working together got things done for the people that elected them.

Now it appears more and more that representatives work hardest to advance the election of more of their own party and not so much the interests of the total population they represent.

Deschutes County is represented by two Republicans and one Democrat, and the three of them seem to work very well together to get done the work that benefits all of us. Oh, if only it were so in Salem and Washington, D.C.

Bernie Sanders has opened a campaign office in Tumalo. What? Oregon is still important in the race for the White House? Wow, will wonders never cease?

Remember eight years ago when it was big news that then-Sen. Barack Obama landed at the airport for a Deschutes County campaign stop?

So maybe we are still a big deal politically — but only if we get out and vote and otherwise participate in the process of electing representatives.

It is one thing to be mad at the crazy system we have developed, but it is our duty to be part of changing it to make it work better — and more sanely.

That means, at the very least, that we should vote for the candidates of our choice. Our low participation rate, even here in Oregon, is embarrassing.

Be part of the process.

Vote.

Make your voice be heard.

— Miles Hutchins is a retired Redmond resident who grew up in Central Oregon. milesredmond@gmail.com