Letters to the Editor: March 14, 2025

Cherish downtown

Each day on my walks, I notice changes in town — more bathrooms closed, benches removed and public trash cans missing. In their place, overflowing trash and restricted spaces.

Tennis courts and neighborhood areas that were once open to all are now private. Downtown, another failed small business closes and a wine tasting room opens in its place.

While Donald Trump pushes policies favoring billionaires, we must also examine how local decisions reflect similar trends. Our focus on tourism, wealth and comfort is pushing out the very people who live here, especially downtown.

What if our downtown spaces were affordable for young local entrepreneurs? What if we had restaurants and shops accessible to residents, alongside clean, well-maintained public spaces, including green areas, restrooms and trash cans? Imagine a downtown that everyone could enjoy and use.

I recognize our wine industry and associated economic growth brings incredible benefits. However, I also believe it’s up to us to defend the institutions that are important to us.

I strongly believe in the importance of maintaining the accessibility of our downtown spaces as we navigate growth.

Downtown belongs to us all. Let’s not hand it over to the rich so easily.

Jennifer Fisher

Owner, Alchemist’s Jam

No to development

In reference to the News-Register article “Bumps Ahead for Quarry Park?” (3/3/25), I propose that Quarry Park remain as a protected greenspace park.

A “bike skills course” and “pump track” do not belong here. Any form of “development” would permanently harm this unique environment that humans and wildlife currently enjoy as is.

Valerie Anton

McMinnville

No help from city

Your article about the short-term rental permit granted to Nev Gigena last week by the McMinnville City Planning Commission shows a lack of understanding about homeowner’s associations. Four different local HOAs were in attendance at this hearing to oppose the permit.

When the Gigenas purchased their home, they signed legally binding to abide by HOA covenants and restrictions. Those CC&Rs included a prohibition on using that home as a commercial property, restricting its use by a single family or household.

A subsequent CC&R amendment approved by 80% of the homeowners added specific language to prohibit short-term rentals.

Use of this home as a short-term rental is a violation of a contract and the Gigenas knew this when the HOA Board sent a registered letter to them on July 15, 2024. They were not “targeted.” Every other homeowner here is held to the same covenants and restrictions we all agreed to.

The city has now facilitated the Gigenas to be in violation of a legally binding contract. The intent of the HOA Board to enforce that contract is a reasonable consequence.

A second line of investigation is what “plans” the Planning Department or Planning Commission have for short-term rentals throughout McMinnville and how these contribute to our quality of life. We read about a housing shortage here, and then they allow conversion of homes to short-term rentals at what benefit?

Would you enjoy having an unmonitored short-term rental with a revolving door of tenants next to your home? The Gigenas live in Arizona, so unlike their neighbors here, they will not experience any rental consequences except the income.

Gretchen Freeman

Michelbook Meadows, McMinnville

Not now, not ever

Foreign-born oligarchs Elon Musk and Peter Thiel purchased an American president by putting hundreds of millions of dollars into his 2024 campaign — chump change in their world. So they now control the White House.

This allows them to engage in systematic destruction of the federal government and the vital services it provides, both to veterans and ordinary citizens, while destroying the share value of American companies. Just check your retirement accounts.

Why? They are following the Russian model.

Destroy the central government and the economy, then buy back the parts at distressed prices to pad their portfolios. That way, they can exert more control over the way Americans live, not based on our Constitution, but on their distorted views of Christian values.

The states and courts and every freedom-loving American must take a stand against this tyranny before the takeover is complete. We must say it the only way these men understand:

Nyet! Not here! Not now! Not ever!

Phil Forve

McMinnville

Join the fight

Every day, the Trump administration hacks away more of our rights, our money, our health and our national security. Every day it violates the Constitution and ignores court orders.

In the name of “finding waste,” its leaders savage education, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, aka The Oregon Health Plan. They let criminals out of jail and persecute honest people who oppose them.

They destroy any entity that protects workers, consumers, taxpayers, soldiers or veterans. They abuse our democratic allies and take foreign policy orders from dictator Vladimir Putin.

As a CNBC economist put it, speaking of the plummeting stock market, “What President Trump is doing is insane. It’s insane.”

But many of us may not realize it’s happening. That’s not because it goes unreported, but because it’s so hard to accept that an American president is killing America in broad daylight.

People ask, “Why would he do that? That can’t be true.”

But it IS true. It’s happening.

It’s so flagrantly un-American and illegal, one must conclude the perpetrators don’t expect to face any consequences in the courts or at the ballot box. They plan to make us too sick, too poor, too ignorant and too scared to reject their ugly, corrupt version of America.

I want everyone conducting this as business as usual to understand: Hoping for the best is not going to cut it. In these circumstances, “hoping for the best” means being complicit in the destruction of the country.

Remember the nuns in The Sound of Music, who delayed the Nazis by taking the distributor cap off the Nazi car? Let it inspire you.

What can you do to resist, protest, delay and reject the evil that faces us?

We can do it. We can be the nuns.

Anna Keesey

McMinnville

Derangement syndrome

Trump Derangement Syndrome is alive and well in the Democrat party and state of Oregon.

I’m sure Sen. Ron Wyden thought it was cute and clever to hold a town hall on the same night as President Trump’s speech to Congress.

But it was petty. Shame on you if you attended Wyden’s town hall instead of listening to our president’s great speech, where you might have learned something.

Did you know DOGE discovered we paid 7 million dollars for the study of transgenic mice — mice genetically modified for fertility ad asthma studies, not to be confused with transgender mice as alleged by some.

Does any thinking person actually believe this is a good use of our taxpayer dollars? Well, Democrats apparently do.

I would like to know who that $7 million check was mailed to. Perhaps Ron Wyden can answer that.

Judy Hromyko

McMinnville

Vote suppression

At the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, there may have been some innocent people, duped into believing Donald’s stolen election lie, who were there in good faith. There were also a cadre of organized and mostly armed men — nope, not FBI plants — anticipating declaration of martial law.

And those 10,000 National Guard troops Donald Trump claimed to have deployed? There is no evidence that he ever made such a request.

Mike Pence is the one who finally gave the order to deploy. From contemporaneous reporting in the Military Times: “National Guard troops faced unusual restrictions and deployment delays from senior Pentagon leaders amid the attempted insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, including a more than three-hour wait for deployment approval.”

In 2020, voter advocacy groups were able to overcome enough of the Republican vote suppression tactics to have an effect on the outcome. The tactics in 2024 were conducted in a different manner and larger scale, so advocacy groups were unable to overcome enough of the suppression.

Actual voter fraud is virtually non-existent. Penalties for voting illegally can include years in prison.

Vote by mail is safe and secure. No one in their right mind would attempt to vote if he knew he were ineligible.

It is true that Republican vote suppression in Oregon is nascent. That is precisely why now is the time to nip it in the bud and protect our voting rights.

To that end, I am still waiting for a response from Sen. Starr and Rep. Elmer as to whether or not they support our vote by mail system.

And, by all means, we should revisit the 2000 Presidential election results. But that U.S. Supreme Court nefariousness will not fit in this space.

Alisa Owen

McMinnville

Had enough yet?

Enough of confusion and chaos. Enough of the heartless cruelty of two grown men acting like spoiled children, with no regard for anyone but themselves and their wealthy oligarch playmates.

The two co-presidents — one of whom was never elected! — think ripping apart our government is a game. You probably saw Musk gleefully whipping around a chainsaw.

How two childish men can disrupt the whole world is beyond my comprehension. Where is the backbone of the representatives and senators in Congress? Many of whom privately acknowledge they don’t like what is going on, but are afraid to speak out publicly, lest they lose their political jobs.

What about the dedicated public workers who were given no notice, just told to leave and shown the door. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, which I no longer have any respect for, appears to be completely ignoring the Constitution.

There is nothing wrong with a new administration trying to make our government run more efficiently, and in the process, hopefully save money. But it is not the way Musk and his young techies, who should read some history on totalitarianism, are doing it.

Look at the way Bully Trump is scornfully dealing with our friends and allies. He loves to call names, threaten and demean.

What an embarrassment. He has now made us “The Ugly American.”

So far, Canada seems to be the only country standing up to The Bully. Canadians have forgotten their political labels and are working together in harmony to stand up to Trump, along with his insults and tariffs,

And him thinking he can make Canada our 51st state. What an insane idea.

Let’s do the same. Let’s work together as Americans, not Democrats or Republicans, to take our country back from this insanity.

Patricia Rickert

McMinnville