Greetings again readers! I’m glad to be back after a brief trip of out of country, a first journey abroad post-pandemic.

Such a joy to get a way and do some heavy travel lifting for the first time in awhile. I journeyed down to central Colombia, flying first into Bogota and checking out the capital city before moving up into the Andes foothills and visiting indigenous villages, colonial towns and a few bits of still-virgin forest. It’s cool to see Americans embracing tourism in Colombia once again. It’s a country that has so much to offer in the way of great food, culture, wildness, history and more. I’ll write more about it in a future column.

Bulletin editor Gerry O’Brien held down the fort in my absence, so a big thanks to him and reporter Nick Rosenberger for pumping out lots of content and keeping everyone informed.

One big story we’ve been working on is about the Spencer Court Apartments, which are slated to be town down and replaced with 60 low-income rental apartments. At a time when the cost of living is exploding, it’s great to see that housing managers are fitting as many households as they comfortably can into the acreage that has already been set aside for that kind of development. 

This comes on the back of changes to the planned Skyline Village development, which now has a new name.

In next week’s edition, we’ll have a profile of a local flamenco teacher (who was a professional dancer in Spain!), as well as a recap of Winterfest and an update on fireworks plans for this Fourth of July in Redmond.

Our opinion page is full this week with opinions about marijuana dispensaries, homelessness and other assorted advice for city council and for prospective voters. It’s a reminder that we welcome all kinds of thoughts from the community on that page and online. If you’d like your voice to be included, send me an email at ttrainor@redmondspokesman.com or call me at 541-548-3203. 

Thanks to your support, we’re seeing strong subscription growth, but we need to keep that momentum growing in order to pay for more staff and put out a better product each and every week.

Call 541-923-1370 or go to redmondspokesman.com and we’ll get you signed up at an affordable price. That’s without a doubt the best way to support our work and get informed about your community.

To reach our newsroom, stop by our office — located at 361 SW Sixth — from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

— Tim Trainor is editor of the Redmond Spokesman.