By Dora Totoian • Of The News-Register • 

Mac city council candidate's husband blasts Peralta, who says criticism unfounded

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Comments

GrizzlyMountain

As one of several candidates who is running on a public transparency platform, it doesn’t seem to me that Ms. Ruiz has been very transparent.

First, private religious beliefs should not matter if they are kept separate from government. However, Scientology is in organization with interests and motives that by many accounts extend beyond personal worship, and credible evidence suggests that Ms. Ruiz and her husband were employees of that organization. Given the circumstances it seems fair to ask whether she is still affiliated with the Scientology organization. Why won’t she comment?

Second, Ms. Ruiz as well as Heidi Parker, Chris Cheneweth, Adam Garvin, Mary Starrett, Lindsay Berschauer and other local candidates are funded by a political action committee called “Yamhill First.” This PAC is in turn largely funded by corporate interests. One should ask why Yamhill First is spending significant amounts of money on local elections. Do we think these are no-strings-attached contributions?

Third, Ms. Ruiz has been a prominent anti-vaccination advocate. Does she plan on pushing her extreme personal political views in her role as an elected official? She hasn’t addressed this.

Lastly, Ms. Ruiz, Heidi Parker and others have stated that they will increase funding for emergency services, but offer no plans on how to pay for this. In fact, they also state that they will decrease fees. As a matter of basic accounting, I want to know how they plan on decreasing income while simultaneously increasing expenses.

Transparency in government is a good thing. But why don’t Brittany Ruiz, Heidi Parker and others practice what they preach?

leo

Scientology is about control. I know people who have grown up in that belief system and have left the organization as soon as they figured out how. So we don't need a controlling cult telling local government what to do through elected officials.

Jeb Bladine

GrizzlyMountain,

Related comments, including yours, are attached to an N-R editorial. Readers can see those at:
https://newsregister.com/article?articleTitle=menke-garvin-chenoweth-our-choices-for-city-council--1602882374--38431--editorials

One of those comments describes some of the politics of Yamhill First. Related information includes recipients of contributions -- $1,000 each to the 4 City Council candidates you named, but the largest being $5,000 to Lindsay Berschauer, $4,000 to Paulette Alexdrandria, $2,000 to Stan Primozich and $1,500 to Ron Noble.

news junky

Is there information publicly available as to who the principals are of "Yamhill First"? How about if these high financiers of politics come out in the wide open with who they are and what their agenda really is? The recent turn our politics has taken here in the county is very troubling.

Hibb

[1] Yamhill First is a troublesome issue, as it is a relatively unknown political operative with apparently not too deep of pockets given the amount it has furnished to several of its chosen candidates; but the choice is as simple as the list of candidates it is sponsoring. Once one knows that Heidi Parker heads the list, one then knows that Yamhill First is "not good" for Yamhill County and responsible citizens should express their lack of support through their ballots.

[2] Mayor Scott Hill is to be commended for his leadership and for pointing out that the whole Ruiz-Peralta affair is not fodder for the Council.

[3] As for Sal Peralta, does he realize that his criticism of Ruiz only served to pull the Ruiz circus back into the foreground of Yamhill's political landscape. It would be better if we let Ruiz disappear into the shadows of obscurity and get on with the business at hand.

Jeb Bladine

News junky,

Information about political action committees is very public and easily searched in Oregon, including detailed listings of all committee donors and contributions. Yamhill First was formed by Chris McLaran, Jason John and David Mahn, all of McMinnville, with goals of supporting pro-business candidates. The political action committee precedes the controversial 2020 City Council election, but initial funding came from donors who were unhappy with various actions by the City of McMinnville.

Hibb

I find it somewhat amazing how the parallels between the Ruiz and Parker spouses not running for office are so quick to jump into the fray all in the name of defending their wives and their wives' political ambitions...

A very nice difference is that so far we have not heard from Mayor Hill's wife and how she finds it so upsetting what others are saying about her husband. Oh wait... No one is saying anything about Scott Hill because he is a respected member of our community and of the local government.

Quite the contrast, don't you think?

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