Letters to the Editor: Aug. 21, 2026

Trampling on rights

McMinnville, we feel your pain

In sleepy little Monmouth, your neighbor 26 miles south, more than 150 people appeared before our city council in April to voice disapproval of plans to convert county farmland a half-mile from Western Oregon University into a 2,000-person medium-density housing development.

It was a variation on what we read about happening in McMinnville. The plan was developed without involving local residents, preceded by a 2024 state law impacting all of Oregon, and facilitated by a targeted 2025 state law that allowed addition of 75 acres to Monmouth’s urban growth boundary.

Our struggle continues.

Hardworking citizens in the city successfully sponsored a referendum on the UGB amendment, and we have a strong slate of commonsense city council candidates for the November election. The city’s proposed action has united Democrats and Republicans, who are working together on their common local issue.

We have learned what McMinnville is learning: The Oregon Legislature hamstringed the freedom of local control in 2024 with SB 1537, a legislative black hole featuring 37 pages of confusing legalese that should embarrass every Salem politician who touched it. Now, in McMinnville, that bill may bless four-story apartments with inadequate parking and congested streets rising next to single-family homes.

The executive branch of Oregon’s government has a plain-language law, ORS 183.750, which requires the Department of Administrative Services to produce documents for a 10th-grade level of reading ability. But both houses of our state Legislature have produced gobbledygook land use documents guaranteed to provide much income for attorneys and much frustration for citizens who attempt to navigate that maze.

These are genuinely non-partisan issues. Salem must learn that it cannot trample on the rights of citizens in their communities to decide what is best for their own counties and cities.

David C. Pastor

Monmouth

Lawless in Mac

Aren’t e-bikes supposed to observe the rules of the road, just like a car?

I’ve been passed by speeding e-bikes on both sidewalks and walking paths. I’ve seen e-bikes driving on the street, but ignoring stop signs and speed limits. I’ve come close to hitting e-bikes darting across at crossings without stopping.

What are the rules for e-bikes sharing sidewalks and streets with cars and pedestrians? Without license plates or identification, how do you report a violation of those rules? Are traffic tickets issued if the e-bike riders are too young to hold licenses?

Gretchen Freeman

McMinnville

Maintenance, please

As a father of two, I would like to say:

The amount of new parkland is not the issue the people of McMinnville care about as much as maintenance of what we already have.

Discovery Meadows needs some TLC: New chains on the basketball court, removal of graffiti, addition of a 20-foot-wide half-pipe at the skate park, restoration of plumbing for the splash pad, addition of four to six pickleball courts, and hosting of a free outdoor movie on Sundays with family-friendly food vending.

These are things that would bring the community together in caring about its parks. It would have a positive impact on all ages.

Why buy a brand new car if you treated the last one like a Dumpster? Because that is where the funding for the new parks will end up, in the Dumpster.

I hope funding is redirected to these efforts, and to the salaries of the city workers who maintain what we already have.

How can we create a new park when the grass is dead at our existing parks? It’s nonsense.

Casey Kilgore

McMinnville

Join the appeal

McMinnville residents: If you live, work or own a business in our historic downtown, or you just enjoy our much-celebrated historic ambiance, then listen up!

Do you know the McMinnville Planning Commission and McMinnville Historic Landmarks Committee have already approved the proposal for a modern four-story, 72-unit apartment building at the busy downtown corner of Second and Evans streets? If you think this approval must be reversed, I urge you to make your voice heard at the appeal hearing, set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 25, in the Kent Taylor Civic Hall.

The residential glut of 72 to 120 new occupants in one city block, along with their cars, is destined to become a safety nightmare.

The loss of public and street parking will discourage people from visiting our businesses and festive events. The introduction of such a visually incompatible building will fly in the face of our adherence to historic preservation in McMinnville.

This project should never have been approved in this location. Join us in person, or by Zoom, to support the appeal.

Phyllice Bradner

McMinnville

Community bonding

Dear Lovely Neighbors,

We chose to not attend the air show this year, but it was so kind and thoughtful of you to put the flight path directly over our house. We would love to repay your generosity by sending the loudest-thing-ever shriek, like a demon from hell, over your home a dozen times next weekend.

Don’t thank us. We’re just glad to participate in the community bonding.

Jim & Kris Gullo

McMinnville