Time to get going on McDougall Junction
Patience and persistence seem to be the watchwords for getting deficiencies in the local highway grid addressed. Local improvement advocates run up against two powerful forces, one working to limit the ...
City spending referendum doesn't require a petition
What do you do if you’re outvoted 13-1 and you still want your way? If you’re McMinnville City Councilor Chris Chenoweth, it would seem, you launch a petition drive aimed at overturning the ...
Spirit of compromise fosters major breaktrhoughs in Salem
What a difference a year makes. Last year, rancor ruled throughout the 160 days set aside for odd-year legislative sessions in Oregon. Senate Republicans staged a walkout that halted work outright for ...
Community educational efforts key to countering youth suicide
“It takes a village to raise a child” is an ancient proverb originating with indigenous tribal cultures in West Africa. It’s based on the premise that successful child rearing requires ...
Is Hastings Village a model worth emulating around here?
An array of churches, schools, nonprofits and social service agencies manage, by tackling different aspects of the problem in a largely if loosely collaborative fashion, to do a lot to help the unhoused ...
Leave medical choices to us, without political interference
In democratic republics like ours, we rely on a broad array of guardrails, be they legislative, judicial, constitutional, moral, ethical or social in nature, to prevent political demagogues from seizing ...
Timing ups the ante for diversity and equity push
The city of McMinnville is riding a powerful state and regional tailwind, but bucking a powerful national headwind, in moving toward adoption of a comprehensive diversity, equity and inclusion program ...
Legislature feeling heat over homelessness and addiction
The Oregon Legislature embarked Monday on its most ambitious 35-day even-year short session ever. Housing, homelessness and addiction figure to dominate the agenda, but thorny budget issues, including ...
Keeping public in the dark eternally inviting for some
Here we go again. It seems government never learns. We refer to two hot new public records cases boiling up in Oregon.Typically, such cases involve a news outlet taking action in pursuit of a record the ...
Small step for Water & Light a big step for our community
The McMinnville Water & Light Commission unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding last week on the sale of a 27-acre Marsh Lane site to the city for a new recreation center — an edifice ...
Reflecting on downtown successes as Hotel Oregon celebrates anniversary
McMenamins has become an iconic corporation in the Northwest with its unique decor, abundance of entertainment options and penchant for giving new life to historic, abandoned buildings. Restoration and ...
City moving with purpose on Alpine redevelopment
When the late Ron Bogh bought John Klaus’ one-man tire recycling operation in 1985 — and it began operating under his initials, first as RB Rubber and later as Ultimate RB — he ...
Forum for competing ideas essential to our democracy
Editorials, letters, columns, cartoons, endorsements and other forms of commentary are increasingly disappearing from America’s community newspapers. In fact, entire opinion sections are disappearing ...
Year was wild and wacky, but who'd expect any less?
The News-Register staff has been busy this week with an annual rite of passage in newspapers everywhere — taking a look back at the outgoing year to chronicle its highlights and lowlights in words ...
Many ways, reasons to give before year’s end
The merriment of the Christmas holiday weekend will be followed by resolutions and reflections as we head toward the New Year. It’s traditionally also the time to get in last minute tax-deductible ...
