Not hateful, just honest.
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6/11/2010
I have lived in Prineville for my entire life (+25 years). There is absolutely nothing to do here for the 18 - 30 age group. Over the years I've seen all kinds of things done in a real Prineville way:
Skatepark: built with metal ramps (too slippery to skate on once the paint wears off), asphalt rather than concrete (so the asphalt has bubbled and cracked, and been repaired with tar, which made it impossible to skate on). Works decent for bmx though, but I don't ride that.
Pool: has been sliding down the hill it's built on. It's unsafe, unsanitary, and it apparently it also constantly leaks. They filled the kiddie pool with sand, rather than fix the problems it was having. And the boy's bathroom has no stalls between the toilets. "Hey there! Watcha doin?" "What's it look like?"
Bowling alley: I used to love that place! I guess the owner had a gambling habit, and it disappeared, and a new bowling alley went up above the rim. Which is too far for walking distance (plus it's uphill on the grade), and out of town. There isn't even an easy road to get to it, you have to circle around about 1/4 mile (after driving a mile up a steep grade.)
Recreational center: Was excited about this, when the town voted it in to be built, but then they voted not to have raised taxes to support the project (how did they think they would pay for it?) then finally voted it down entirely (I guess they gave up).
Music: If you are a band and you're not playing country, the city will shut you down before you finish your second song, even during daylight hours, even if you get a permit, even if it's at the park.
Country vibe: They can't even get that right! How can you have a country town if there's nothing that makes your town even look country?
Noise: Oh, but it's ok if you can hear the announcer of the rodeo all the way at your house, but forget it if you're playing music.
Chamber: They don't promote their businesses at all.
Bands: They all play out of town because Prinevillians (yes that's what we apparently call ourselves) go out of town to have fun.
Commerce: Again, everyone shops out of town, and they can't figure out why we are so underfunded (I mean, when you spend money at a local business, the taxes from that business go right back into the city). And the businesses themselves are either too strapped to improve their business, or not willing to do more for their customers. And it's mostly the former.
Community: There is no community, because everyone who has lived here forever wants to leave, and everyone who moves here is from California and doesn't know how to shop local (which builds community).
Schools: I'm homeschooling my kids, because the schools here are always ready to chop apart art, music, and dance, the teachers aren't very helpful or don't care much (I learned more about math in one year of college than I did all my school-life), and the administration only thinks about cutting, never trying to come up with ideas on how to increase their budget.
Government: The Sheriff's office outsources some of their print jobs to companies out of state. Even though we have a print shop in town that can do it. Police are bored, so they take it out on everyone they can by pulling you over for "signaling at a Y", "Driving late at night", "Not looking Mexican enough to be driving your grandfather's car". (That was a fun one). And city government in general is so unwilling to change or update anything.
Internet: Internet in Prineville is too expensive and way too slow and highly unavailable. The local cable company has a monopoly on the town for residential cable service, so my favorite internet company from Bend isn't allowed to do business here (and I would certainly use our local cable company if their internet speed was above 3mbps and if they didn't charge $45 for basic cable internet, and if they didn't traffic shape and block ports.) As for choice, you get either Qwest, the local cable company, or 2-3 satellite internet companies which charge more than $60 just for a 1mbps connection. Oh, and Clear, which is very terrible. Luckily, the city allowed the Bend company to service local businesses, so I get a 4mbps connection for a decent price at my business.
Job market: What job market? You know somethings wrong with the job market, when your wife works for a mill for several years and gets laid off, after never missing a day of work and never being late, and even having worked every day of her pregnancy (yes, at the mill) until the day she went into labor. Same happened to another hard working pregnant gal at the same mill. Oh, and my grandfather, who was the main millwright there, after 35+ years of service, got a pay cut and lost his job title, while somebody's buddy got the millwright job. But guess who everyone wants to fix the machines? Grandpa. And who do they call in to work on the weekends? Not the new millwright, grandpa. So gramps has the same job, only they pay him less and make him work more while some kid gets his job with less responsibilies and higher pay.
Ah, and Prineville, home of Les Schwab tires. The company moved their corporate office out of town the moment the old man died. That's where the higher paying jobs went, out of town. A lot of prinevillians moved out of town or went broke because of it. Our unemployment rate is around 30% (they only report 18%, but they don't count the self-employed that have lost all their customer base during the recession in that)
Housing: Super cheap! We bought our first house for about $106,000 (which is not cheap), and now I'm finding three-bedroom two-bath houses for around $85k! Should have waited so my 2 kids could have a room and my wife and I could sleep in an actual bedroom (we have a tiiiiiiiny little house)
So, in conclusion, Prineville is FANTASTIC if you like to drive out of town to do all your shopping in Bend, homeschool your kids, and live in a place where you never hear any music, just the beautiful sound of raised trucks driving down the main highway. Oh, and it's super easy to become an alcoholic here, and apparently just as easy to get into meth! (just look around, you'll start to notice tweakers everywhere!) But if you sincerely need help with your drug addiction, better hope you have money because BestCare here is all full up with a huge waiting list.
OK, an actual good note. We FINALLY have a decent music store here. The guys there are really nice and helpful, and they seem to be growing quite a bit since they first started (their store used to be inside a pet shop, yuck). Apparently the guy's losing his house because of the recession, so get in there and BUY something! Support local businesses! Quit going to Bend! If you like Bend so much, go live there and quit mooching off Prineville.
Rob | Prineville, OR