Make the McKenzie Connection!
Make the McKenzie Connection!
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A recent survey from Gov. Tina Kotek's Prosperity Council found that most Oregonians believe high costs, taxes and regulations are making it harder for businesses to grow. The governor acknowledged the challenge plainly: "We have to be intentional here, to be competitive." One place to start is with the steep credit card processing fees Oregon businesses pay on nearly every transaction. Credit card interchange fees, commonly known as "swipe fees," typically take 2 to 4 percent of every credit...
Last week, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to begin implementing key parts of its executive order on mail-in voting, allowing Homeland Security to compile a federal citizenship list and share it with states, the Attorney General to prioritize prosecuting state officials who issue ballots to people the federal government deems ineligible, and the U.S. Postal Service to proceed with new rules governing ballot design. Despite a federal judge on Friday temporarily pausing rules...
Next year, McKenzie River Reflections will turn 50. That’s a milestone my wife, Louise, probably didn’t have in mind when we picked up the first issue as it came off the press at the Springfield News. This newspaper hasn’t remained in business just by itself. Reflections has survived because generations of readers have subscribed, businesses have advertised, people have sent in photographs and story ideas, organizations have kept us informed and countless residents have said, or sent a note, beginning with some version of, “You ought to do a st...
I have tried numerous times to ask Darin Harbick (representative - House District 12), Jake Pelroy (running for county commissioner against Heather Buch), Monica DeSpain (running against Val Hoyle) and Christine Drazen (running for governor), if they support President Trump with his 34 felony convictions and pedophile accusations, ICE, his Middle East war, and economic, forestry and energy policies and NO ONE has had the integrity to address any of these questions. I request that all responsible voters demand answers to these critically...
It's hard to imagine a scenario where ranked choice voting - or, more to the point, the lack of ranked choice voting - won't have an impact on this year's race for governor. Ranked choice voting eliminates concerns about "spoiler" candidates and ensures that the winner has broad support among voters. Right now, we're teeing up a close gubernatorial election with at least one minor party candidate in the mix - with the potential for more to join the fray. Any time you have an election with more...
Most River Reflection readers live in or near the McKenzie River Basin. We prefer to use our local expression, ‘valley’, as indeed it beautifully is. This valley we call home stretches from McKenzie Bridge westward nearly 44 miles to the east ridge of Thurston. But the river we cherish is a longer story. It alternatively plummets and soothes downward from Clear Lake to the Willamette River- a waterway of over 90 miles! Our valley is attached to 1,300 square miles of surrounding timberland. Much of it is rugged, and at times seemingly pri...
In May, state Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, area lost her bid for reelection to the legislature, the first such incumbent loss since 2018. Multiple reasons contributed to Sollman’s loss to union-backed challenger Myrna Muñoz, but a pivotal and new factor was data centers. Those massive buildings, consuming vast amounts of electricity and water and producing compute, serving as the physical location of much of the internet cloud and especially the locus of fast-growing artificial in...
Community newspapers are more than the articles that appear weekly. They’re part of the civic backbone of the communities they serve. For nearly fifty years, McKenzie River Reflections has filled that role in the McKenzie River Valley - covering schools and fire districts, county government and utilities, elections and public meetings, wildfires and rebuilding, businesses, volunteers and neighbors. If I, or someone else, catches a mistake, the next issue will include a correction. Reporting aims to preserve our community’s history. Years from n...
Since its 2001 implementation, The Roadless Area Conservation Rule has protected over 45 million acres of national forest land from having new roads bulldozed into their remote wildlands. This includes nearly two million acres in Oregon cherished for their outdoor recreation opportunities ranging from hiking and mountain biking to fishing and hunting. These inventoried roadless areas provide crucial contiguous habitat that benefit wildlife including deer and elk herds and threatened and endangered species such as bull trout. They are also the a...
It is fair time in the Walterville community once again. This year the Walterville Grange will be sponsoring the 74th annual Walterville Community Fair on September 12. This is not a Grange fair; this is a community fair! We are hoping to get more community members involved in helping with the fair this year. The annual Walterville Waddle 5K run/walk will start at 9 am. Registering is available online at Eclectic Edge Racing with the option to buy a T-shirt (last day to order T-shirts will be August 26). You can also register the day of the...
Oregonians have a front-row seat to watch, though not vote in, an obscure congressional race that could say much about the reshaping of partisan politics in this state and beyond. I'm not talking about Washington's 3rd Congressional District, now held by Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, which saw the state's closest congressional elections for the past two election cycles and may again this year, though, it's certainly a race to watch. No, the Evergreen State contest of greatest interest ahead...
It seems McKenzie River Reflections should enter more competitions. That’s the message I got when the paper received an award for its website at this year’s Pacific Northwest News Publishing Contest. Sponsored by the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association the competition included entries from Washington, Idaho and Oregon, judged by a panel from the New Jersey Press Association. It’s likely there wasn’t any locally influenced favoritism. But a surprise came when I was asked to go to the podium to accept a plaque for an “Elmo Smith Award of...
As wildfires continue to sweep through Central Oregon, it’s important to have an emergency plan that includes animals. In a crisis, animals may hide, bolt, or freeze. You might not have time to search for a frightened cat under the bed or coax a panicked dog out of a corner. Leave carriers out so they feel familiar, and practice gathering your animals so you’re prepared before an emergency happens. Pack a “go bag” with at least a week’s supply of food, water, medications, and medical records, along with bowls, litter supplies, and comfort i...
Like two sides of a coin imprinted with the nation’s motto, “e pluribus unum” — out of many, one — America’s political factions are cast in opposition, but they are intrinsically bound together as parts of a larger whole. From the beginning, the United States has aspired to build a more perfect union. When our founders convened the Constitutional Convention in 1787, they disagreed about the structure of government, the balance of power and the protection of individual versus collective rights. But when they debated — and they often did, wi...
We hope you will join us for the Annual Ice Cream Social Fundraiser and Cobbler Contest at the Upper McKenzie Community Center Saturday, August 1st from 1 pm to 4 pm. This year you can enter the cobbler contest and win a place on the wall of winners. Enjoy ice cream, hot fudge sundaes with all the fixins, floats of any flavor, and Italian sodas, too. Come hungry and have a hot dog or a chili cheese coney loaded with homemade chili, onions, mustard and cheese. Popcorn, chips, cookies, and beverages, etc. Come join the fun! Sponsored by our...
Sky-high energy bills. Record-breaking wildfires. Air too toxic to breathe. Oregonians are already paying the price for pollution from large corporations, which is fueling climate disasters and extreme weather. To make matters worse, some corporate special interests are now trying to take away one of the best tools we have to lower energy costs and clean up our air: Oregon's Climate Protection Program. At its core, the Climate Protection Program is about reducing pollution and improving the...
The Trump administration's take on monopolies, mega-mergers and related activity, among the most important economic actions available to a government, often has been buried under many of the other national headlines in the last year and a half. But the Oregon attorney general's office - with counterparts in other states - may be about to launch a significant effort in the area. The general purpose of anti-trust laws has been "to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers,...
Not everything in the newly-released report of the Governor's Prosperity Council is uncontroversial, or should be, or points specifically to major systemic problems that limit Oregon's economic growth. But some do. Two general proposals especially, which may at first sound almost like anodyne boilerplate, seem on reflection like matters of real significance and specific relevance to the way Oregon works, or doesn't. And in theory at least, both ought not to be non-controversial because they...
Oregon and the Northwest generally have gotten off light so far this year when it comes to wildfires. That can change and probably will, because wildfires tend to take a worsening turn in the month or so ahead. But starting this year, we may have some new tools for planning for their arrival. As of June 25, the National Interagency Fire Center has reported a total 35,118 fires nationwide burning 2.9 million acres - both numbers considerably higher for this point in the year than any year in the...
My wife volunteered for years in dog rescue efforts around the region, and her experiences made clear to me that Oregon's animal cruelty and mistreatment laws were inadequate and needed strengthening. So when Initiative Petition 28, billed as doing something like that, pulled the mass of signatures neededfor ballot status, it sounded welcome. Then I read proposed law and descriptions - especially from the advocates themselves - of what it would actually do. Even its backers acknowledge it's unli...
After Robert Packwood, the long-time U.S. senator from Oregon, died last weekend, news stories about him flowed around the country. Most had a common theme. Many led with, and focused on, the tawdry and extensive sexual harassment and abuse scandals that in 1995 ended his Senate career. "Maverick Republican Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, who resigned after sexual harassment scandal, dies" ... "Bob Packwood, longtime Oregon Senator marred by scandal, dies at 93" - headlines like these were...
Every time an Oregon hunter buys a license, pays for a tag or purchases a box of ammunition, a small portion of that money goes into the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Fund. Since its inception in 1937, the sole purpose of that fund is to protect and improve habitat for wild game animals. In Oregon, those dollars have helped purchase and maintain twenty Wildlife Management Areas - roughly 200,000 acres of public land set aside specifically for fish and wildlife. These lands were paid...
We continue reading about the effects of human-caused climate change, yet our actions to address it are falling short, and some of us continue ignoring climate scientists. As we humans dominated nature for centuries, we destroyed the basis for life for countless other species--plant and animal. We have gone so far in our effort to treat Earth as nothing but a resource that we threaten our own existence. I In 1624 John Donne wrote, “Mo man is an island, entire of itself: every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...” What Don...
The town of Blue River has seen many recovery milestones in recent years, and if you’ve looked closely, you might have noticed that several rebuilt properties have one thing in common – a “naturescaped” yard. Naturescaping is the term coined by ecologists and landscape architects to describe a practice of landscaping that is beautiful and cares for our non-human neighbors. It promotes pollinator-friendly habitats and river health while also incorporating Firewise practices that make homes more resilient to wildfire. And it’s not just happening...
A couple of decades ago, the comedian Chris Rock led a TV series called "Everybody Hates Chris," its name a spin on "Everybody Loves Raymond". Not to pile on too much, but did Oregon just see the "Everybody Hates ODOT" election? The context is that practically everyone in the state seemed to expect the transportation tax and fee law passed last year by the legislature to be given the boot by the voters; the only question was how strong that vote would be. It turned out to be overwhelming: as of...
