Let’s begin with a little honesty: If you’re picturing an “illegal immigrant” lounging on a couch, collecting food stamps while dodging Border Patrol and watching Netflix, you’ve probably been lied to, or at least misled by too many Facebook memes.
Editorials
Airport finally taking flight in the skies over City Hall
The future has never looked brighter for the 650-acre, dual-runway airfield the city inherited from the military in 1943, at a time when World War II was still raging in both the European and Pacific theaters. Over ...
Massive mixed-use venture moving to forefront in Mac
Fasten your seat belts, McMinnville dwellers. You will soon be hearing and seeing a lot about another major local development project — one the city council got its first formal look at in conceptual ...
Legislators left a mess that demands a prompt cleanup
The Oregon Legislature opened this year’s session with three tasks towering over the rest: - Balancing the budget in the face of worrisome economic slippage and continued economic uncertainty. - Developing ...
City gets budget passed; bond showdown up next
The McMinnville City Council laid one contentious financial issue to quiet, anticlimactic rest Tuesday night — a proposed $121,454,284 budget for the new fiscal year it will be ushering in next week. The ...
Immigration raids violating our nation's proud heritage
As long as federal immigration policy remains nothing more than fare for political debate in Washington, D.C., it may seem a matter of little consequence to people immersed in their daily routines in other ...
N-R editorial: Jobless benefits for strikers violates standard of fairness
Extending unemployment benefits to striking workers in both the public and private sectors — a national first the Oregon Legislature now seems poised to sign off on — is a bridge too far for ...
Cool heads and wise choices called for in manager search
Jeff Towery’s decision to leave McMinnville after putting in a bit over eight years as city manager here, presents the community with both a challenge and an opportunity. We hope local leaders will ...
Don't let highway finance fall victim to partisanship
When the Oregon Legislature opened its 2025 session on Jan. 21, crafting a new state transportation package promised to prove one of the most demanding tasks on its agenda. And with a statutorily imposed ...
Hoping we can restore the luster to police work
Facing a $3 million shortfall in McMinnville’s fiscal 2025-26 budget, city staff recommended cutting 11.6 positions, six of them in the police department. On Wednesday night, the budget committee ...
Region faces power crisis demanding concerted action
Oregon has joined Washington in pledging to put its electric utilities on a carbon-neutral footing by 2040. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek noted the two states had been “leading the way for years on courageous ...
Letters
News-Register Letters Policy
The News-Register welcomes written opinions about issues of public interest and about the content of this newspaper. Letters from non-local writers are accepted only if they focus on local issues. This ...
Letters to the Editor: July 18, 2025
Stuck with bill I watched the president talking about tariffs on TV. He said the United States had collected somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 billion from his tariffs so far. He said this was money ...
Letters to the Editor: July 11, 2025
The true picture Open letter to Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano: Poverty does not equate with stupidity, Mr. Bisignano. Those of us living chiefly on Social Security are not ...
Letters to the Editor: July 3, 2025
Fireworks sanctuary? Open letter to McMinnville mayor and council: Please seriously consider a total ban on sale and use of all fireworks within the city limits — year around. Please seriously ...
Letters to the Editor: June 27, 2025
World beyond war About 10 years ago, I took on an extensive research project to learn more about America’s wars — how they came to be, the background on both sides, the cost on both sides, ...
Letters to the Editor: June 20, 2025
Who will be next? I attended the McMinnville “No Kings” protest on June 14. I was happy to see so many people standing up against tyranny. Now what? We have so much more to do. We can start ...
Letters to the Editor: June 13, 2025
Putter in place What if they throw their “really big show” and no one shows up? What if all those who would protest against the parade get really smart. Instead of walking into a set-up that ...
Letters to the Editor: June 6, 2025
Share the burden Did anyone else follow the recent city of McMinnville budget hearings? They were lengthy and often exhausting, as city officials worked to address a projected $3 million shortfall. After ...
Letters to the Editor: May 30, 2025
Backing the blue I would like to express my support for the budget committee members who voted to allocate partial funding to mitigate potential position losses within the McMinnville Police Department. The ...
Letters to the Editor: May 23, 2025
Do the right thing In 2021, my husband and I made the decision to leave Los Angeles and relocate to Oregon. Yes, we’re those people. We knew we wanted to settle in a small town, so we turned to ...
Commentary
Rep. Cyrus Javad: SNAP and Medicaid 'freeloaders'? Are you talking about me?
Let’s begin with a little honesty: If you’re picturing an “illegal immigrant” lounging on a couch, collecting food stamps while dodging Border Patrol and watching Netflix, you’ve probably been lied to, or at least misled by too many Facebook memes.
Steve Duin: Exodus of major corporations leaving barren wake in Oregon
You might think Don Vollum would have made peace by now with the slow vanishing of Oregon-based corporations.
Then came the March announcement that the new owners of Tektronix would move the headquarters of Oregon’s legendary technology company from its Beaverton campus to Raleigh, N.C.
Jeb Bladine: McMinnville's founder left an interesting will
We newspaper people tend to be packrats of history. It shows in our weekly “Memory Lane” articles, “Vintage N-R” photographs and backroom stacks of newspapers dating into the 1800s. ...
Marian Rose Lucas: Lack of empathy is heartless and cruel
Open letter to Yamhill County Commissioner Mary Starrett:
I am writing in response to your incredibly offensive and completely out of touch statements regarding the locally devastating federal cuts to SNAP and Medicaid as a result of Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Investigating the Bible: Misusing the Bible
There was a woman who was very devout in her faith. She wanted to follow God’s will every day and she asked God to lead her. To receive his answer, she’d close her eyes, open her Bible, flip through the pages and place her finger on a random page.
Yara Asi: Israeli policies are creating catastrophic starvation risk
After 18 months of punishing raids, airstrikes and increasingly restrictive siege in Gaza, the United Nations issued an urgent warning in late May about the ongoing humanitarian crisis. It estimated 14,000 babies were at risk of starvation without an immediate influx of substantial aid, especially food.
Jeb Bladine: Tragic Texas flooding delivers universal lesson
Today’s instant multi-media bounces our eyes, ears and brains fleetingly from one disaster to the next, assaulting our senses and emotions, then moving on. In the wake of those continual reports, ...
Investigating the Bible: Serenity in suffering
The Serenity Prayer is a tradition in the Alcoholics Anonymous organization: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” One man in the Old Testament learned serenity through painful life setbacks.
Quirk of the Week: Still missing the big picture
The weekly focus on Quirk continues what feels like a multi-week arc involving public art. The works are all around us and, as creative expression, are often imbued with charm and other odd aspects. And ...
Charles House: City, state, college helped blaze trails in electronics
About the writer: Charles House, then HP’s corporate engineering director, first visited McMinnville in 1983. He was drawn by contributions of the HP McMinnville Division team, successor to FEMCOR, ...
Jeb Bladine: Constitutional ideals gain holiday importance
President Donald Trump in January ordered a suspension of asylum access at the southern U.S. border. On Wednesday, July 2, a U.S. District Court judge from Washington, D.C., declared Trump’s January ...
Kirby Neumann-Rea: Should we not ask if fascism could, indeed, happen here?
About the writer: Longtime Oregon journalist Kirby Neumann-Rea retired earlier this year as managing editor of the News-Register. But he keeps his fingers nimble on the keyboard, his mind nimble at the ...
Investigating the Bible: Freedom neglected
Alice Day wrote in the Reader’s Digest about her state trooper husband who stopped a motorist for speeding. The man quickly admitted he had exceeded the posted speed limit, but still insisted on a court hearing. On his day in court, the state trooper was present and watched as the man pled guilty and then happily paid his fine.
Billy J. Stratton: Danger lies not in AI robots, but in human programmers
In 2014, Stephen Hawking voiced grave warnings about the threat of artificial intelligence.
Investigating the Bible: Life in heaven
A little boy walked along a path with his mother one early evening near their home in the country. He looked intently at tall trees, flowers, and nearby homes. When they stopped to rest, he gazed up into the sky.
Jeb Bladine: Politics deals defeat to news-sustaining plan
Initially slim hopes of sustaining Oregon newsrooms with “big tech” dollars sprouted with 2025 evolution of SB 686 in the Oregon Legislature. Tuesday, those hopes were dashed after a flurry ...
Quirk of the Week: Taking a sidelong glance at odd sights, some fortunately fleeting
Quirk has always been about some things gone sideways, in good ways. Yet, at a year-and-a-half into the chronicling of Quirk in this publication, this is a good time to examine sideways as … not ...
Gary Conkling: Tariffs won't reshore jobs because they never left
About the writer: Gary Conkling started writing stories as a child and publishing them on his own hand-cranked printing press. Little did he know digital technology would make it possible to repeat the ...
Jeb Bladine: Oregon likely to change tourism funding split
Chaos and angst are among this week’s catchwords in Salem as the Oregon Legislature approaches mandatory adjournment by June 29 amid rumors that legislators may leave town by early next week. One ...
Investigating the Bible: Mistakes in judgment
When Mike Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas, his 12-year-old son decided to bake a cake. The rest of the family left on a shopping trip and when they returned he proudly showed his father the cake, which looked delicious. Huckabee bit into a forkful of the dessert and quickly spit it out.
