When I drive through Yamhill and Carlton these days, I see so much that has changed over the decades. The old shacks from my childhood, lacking electricity and plumbing, are gone. Today, wineries ...
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Editorials
We can’t let crime pay for perpetrators
Property rights are among the most cherished of all rights in America, and several constitutional provisions serve to protect them. Foremost among the safeguards is the Fifth Amendment, which forbids depriving ...
Homeless can be helped, but only if they’re visible
McMinnville officials might allow owners of industrial land the opportunity to volunteer his or her property for short-term transitional housing for homeless people. That means dealing with a problematic ...
Don’t settle for filling seat in May
Yamhill County voters approved seismic shifts in the way county board of commissioner seats are filled, first in 1996, when they opted to limit holders to three four-year terms, and then in 2000, when ...
Now is not the time for another gun bill
Anyone who thinks Oregon is a blue state should scan the outrage expressed over a timid gun law proposal introduced as House Bill 4005. The testimony served as a reminder that Oregon is a liberal state ...
Don’t blame planners for doing their job
McMinnville Planning Director Heather Richards, like all public officials, chooses to work in a free-fire zone. Criticism comes with the job, as it should. No one empowered to make decisions on behalf ...
Restoring native savanna a cause worthy of support
Susan Watkins and Arnie Hollander are paying a steep price for helping reverse the 150-year decline of Oregon white oak in the Yamhill Valley. Instead, we should be finding them harmless, if not dangling ...
Short session short on what was promised
Imagine the whole thing as a boxing match. Fighters come out from their corners swinging on odd-numbered years, having at each other for a full 12 rounds. Then, just for the heck of it, they get together ...
When it comes to land use, where's the common ground?
Here we go again. Or as Yogi Berra once said in his famously fractured English, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” Or is it? McMinnville established its first and only ...
Truly putting people first would be welcome change
A time-worn saying has it, “No good deed goes unpunished.” And it was once again proven true over the Christmas holiday, this time by US Bank. Here’s the backstory, which should deliver ...
Bitter harvest threatens wine industry
If politics were wine, this would be a strange year for Republicans, producing a vintage that leaves an unsettling aftertaste. But Oregon’s wine industry may find it more than unsettling. It could ...
Letters
Letters to the editor: Feb. 21, 2020
Opportunities for Oregon On Wednesday, the McMinnville Area Chamber of Commerce submitted written testimony to the House Revenue Committee in opposition to HB 4010, which would disconnect Oregon from ...
Letters to the editor: Feb. 13, 2020
Clearing up misconceptions I was the person who contacted the News-Register about the listing for a property that had been used to produce child pornography. I read the article’s online comments ...
Letters to the editor: Feb. 6, 2020
Lacking legal precision I think there’s one thing that people can agree on about the recent House impeachment and Senate trial. The whole process seems to be vague and poorly defined. It lacks ...
Letters to the editor: Jan. 30, 2020
The logic of impeachment President Trump is standing trial on two articles of impeachment: 1) Abuse of power for using his power as president for solicitation of the interference of a foreign government, ...
Letters to the editor: Jan. 23, 2020
Cuffed without cause I have lived in McMinnville for more than 40 years, and am very concerned about the lack of local police transparency. I am speaking out of personal experience, after having two McMinnville ...
Letters to the Editor: January 17, 2020
Nothing but the best Reading your editorial on our local Willamette Valley Medical Center might make some folks reluctant to seek treatment there. As a recent patient, I want to go on the record: I received ...
Letters to the editor: Jan. 10, 2020
Slow the growth The future of McMinnville is in the control of those with a bulldoze-and-build mentality. They are intent on creating new subdivisions with hundreds of homes. The official line is that ...
Letters to the editor: Jan. 2, 2020
Our democracy in peril Mr. Henderson’s column, citing Upton Sinclair’s “It Can’t Happen Here,” was a stark reminder of the perils of this presidency and the lessons history ...
Letters to the editor: Dec. 27, 2019
Account fell badly short As one of the organizers of the Defend Democracy protest held last week, I would like to set the record straight. The News-Register article does not accurately reflect either ...
Letters to the editor: Dec. 19, 2019
Amazing community A little more than three years ago, my wife, Carol, and I relocated to Oregon. After quite a bit of soul-searching, we decided to make our home in McMinnville. Time and again, our decision ...
Commentary
Kristof: We’re losing a generation to drugs, alcohol, neglect
When I drive through Yamhill and Carlton these days, I see so much that has changed over the decades. The old shacks from my childhood, lacking electricity and plumbing, are gone. Today, wineries ...
Jeb Bladine: Onslaught corroding every form of trust
It’s working: Too often, my internal response to political debate is a mixture of skepticism and outright disbelief. It’s working, but for whom? Consider this definition from the National ...
Enticknap: Climate emergency sounds call for action
Climate scientists have been warning for decades of an impending global warming crisis. And it has not only it arrived, it is accelerating. Now scientists are predicting untold suffering in a ...
Jeb Bladine: Oregon’s CAT new star of the tax show
I was a bit crabby to Rose Marie Caughran last month in the City Club lunch line. Whatchamacolumn Jeb Bladine is president and publisher of the News-Register. > See his column McMinnville’s ...
Vittertv: Amazon rainforest being stripped at record rate
By LIBERTY VITTERT Of Washington University This year, I served on the judging panel for the Royal Statistical Society’s International Statistic of the Decade. Much like Oxford English Dictionary’s ...
Jeb Bladine: Plenty of history at your fingertips
I remember when McMinnville annexed a pastoral tract of land along a dead-end country road. That was Fleishauer Lane, hardly a rural setting today. Whatchamacolumn Jeb Bladine is president ...
Democrats doubling down on cap and trade
Oregon’s fifth 35-day off-year legislative session opens the first Monday in February. Well, it’s actually the seventh, if you count the special sessions of 2008 and 2010, before voters ...
Jeb Bladine: Asking ourselves the wrong question
In 1973-74, I watched the Senate Watergate and House Impeachment hearings after work and early into the morning on PBS. It was the ultimate political whodunnit. Whatchamacolumn Jeb Bladine ...
We're not on same page in our political discourse
When we talk about politics, we find quite often that we aren’t talking about the same things. We are actually talking past each other. We address political and social subjects as though some of ...
Jeb Bladine: Quiet 2020 launch of ‘Partners’ project
This month’s quiet launch of the News-Register’s “Community Partners” program is going to evolve and expand over months and, hopefully, years to come. Whatchamacolumn Jeb ...
Sal Peralta: Citizens need to seize control, restore grassroots democracy
As one who has been involved in public service for decades, I am alarmed about the deterioration of both our political system and the way we talk about public policy in this country. I am not alone. According ...
Jeb Bladine: Time for a war on land use tyranny?
For decades, Oregonians have worshiped at the altar of anti-sprawl and habitual protection of agricultural and forest lands. Unfortunately, that near-religious dedication caused us to ignore the laws of ...
Climate change and trade war: How do you like them apples?
A is for apple. Every schoolchild knows that. But what those kids — along with their parents, grandparents and teachers — likely do not know is just how precarious life has become ...
Jeb Bladine: Bugging ourselves with smartphones
Do you have a smartphone? If so, do you mind that it tracks and analyzes your movements, creating lucrative information for sale to marketing companies? Whatchamacolumn Jeb Bladine ...
America’s love affair with the single-family house is cooling, but it won’t be a quick breakup
For decades, land use regulation across the U.S. has emphasized single-family houses on large lots. This approach has priced many people out of the quintessential American dream: homeownership. ...
Jeb Bladine: Trust in people has turned to suspicion
I think about — and sometimes covet — the innate trust my parents’ generation had in people from all walks of life in America. It was borne of a society in which people were more personally ...
Jeb Bladine: N-R archives reveal good lives, well-lived
Most Decembers, I stop to remind myself of the many well-lived local lives that ended that year — an enlightening experience made possible by two sets of online News-Register archives. Whatchamacolumn Jeb ...
Newspaper demise feeds partisanship
By JOSHUA DARR, JOHANNA DUNAWAY and MATTHEW HITT It seems impossible to ignore national politics today. The stream of stories about the president and Congress is endless. Whether online, in print or on ...
Jeb Bladine: New decade brings unfinished business
Let’s take a first look into 2020: Whatchamacolumn Jeb Bladine is president and publisher of the News-Register. > See his column Christmas is in the past, New Years looms large, ...
