We read something peculiar in the Malheur Enterprise: The board of a public development company has dictated that a family in Nyssa is forbidden to talk to the media if it wants up to $400,000 to help with an industrial road.
Gov. Kate Brown recently extended, again, the state of emergency regarding COVID-19, citing only a vague reference to a “fourth wave.” The Oregon Health Authority website reveals that daily ca…
Greater Idaho website explains logistics
I recently introduced Senate Bill 865 and it has generated some controversy. The bill is about rooting out conflicts of interest in our government, but I wanted to provide my constituents with…
As we contemplate the Greater Idaho move, I would like to bring up a few consequences such an action may bring.
I'm supporting Randy Shaw for Position 4 on the La Grande School Board.
Upon crossing into Idaho on I-84 there used to be a sign reading "Idaho is too great to litter." I used to joke the sign should read: "Idaho is too illiterate to be great." The joke hit home, …
Critical race theory and transgenderism are two destructive ideologies that have taken root in American society. Critical race theory is a new spin on the old Karl Marx tune of oppressors and …
For the first time in months The Observer’s newsroom is operating with a full staff.
For over six years of my life, I was wrongfully incarcerated in an Oregon prison. I was convicted in Malheur County of a crime I did not commit and falsely labeled as having abused my own chil…
I enjoyed The Observer's front-page feature article May 1 about the trees of our community. It was such a complete article that with paper in hand we should be able to go out and check out the…
Have you ever stopped to pull and toss a sticker out of your socks? Or pulled a burr or sticktight out of your dog's coat? Kicked off your boots, or emptied pant cuffs or pockets into the wind…
A drunken driving conviction for John Hedgpeth seemed a cinch.
Halibut dinner drive-thru a delicious success for North Powder schools
Like Eastern Oregon University’s library formerly known as Pierce, my high school is, at the moment, nameless.
The devil is in the details. The devil is also in hard realities. Veteran Mike McCarter, president of Move Oregon’s Border, wrote an opinion piece in local papers supporting MOB, which wants t…
Just like you, I live with the fear of wildfire. My Southern Oregon town of Ashland nestles against the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains, whose forests become tinder in our hot, dry summers…
Firearms play a role in our culture, but death accompanies them
A recent study concluded that much of the West is experiencing the second-most severe drought recorded in the past 1,200 years. Currently, 80% of Oregon is experiencing drought. Severe fire we…
It’s normal these days to applaud the return to normality. But I’m going to miss some of the abnormal stuff we’ve been doing during the pandemic. The Top 10 things I hate to lose:
Oregon state Sen. Mike Dembrow, D-Portland, has been noisy about the need for the Oregon Health Authority to be transparent about the COVID-19 data it releases.
Today we’d like you to draft a multimillion-dollar wish list and send it off to your Oregon state senator and state representative.
Trust the science — get vaccinated
This May, voters in five counties of Eastern Oregon will be deciding whether to entrust the future of their children and their communities to the governance of an enlarged Idaho or to the unhi…
The massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act is pouring money into local governments as people and their communities continue to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic.
So let me get this straight.
Surely most of us can remember when, nearly a year ago, lockdown measures hailed from on high and we all donned our masks, sheltered in place and submitted to the politicians’ decisions to shu…
April 19, 1775. The gathering storm of growing tensions between colonial residents and the colonial government, which represented the British Crown, had come to a head. The reasons were taxati…
In 1919, Oregon was the first state to charge a tax per gallon of gas. And the state could be one of the first to charge everyone by mile driven.
Vaccine hesitancy has emerged as an important issue in our society. For several reasons a significant segment of our population is reluctant to receive the vaccine for COVID-19. It may be argu…
My name is Matthew Briney and I am a resident of La Grande who has a disability. I grew up in Union County. My family moved to Cove from Island City for my education to accommodate with my dis…
In the wake of recent mass shootings, President Joe Biden managed to avoid being blown over by a gentle breeze in the White House Rose Garden to announce several marginal executive actions on …
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” Khazad-dûm is an ancient dwarven stronghold used to mine Mithril: a precious metal renowned for its strength and beauty. Unfortunately, the dwarves dug…
Bailey Munck. What an incredible “silence breaker” at 17 years old. She too deserves to be on the cover of Time magazine, like the women in 2017 who launched the “me too” movement and began to…
For those not familiar with the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, this is what is said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they a…
Living in Wallowa County is a privilege, not only because of the natural beauty, small size and friendly people, but because it is removed enough from the American mainstream to be a perch fro…
The reports from the Department of Human Services Critical Incident Review Team are some of the most heartbreaking things that the state of Oregon produces.
Tree huggers, are you contemplating a Zoom meeting with Mr. Elm instead?
It’s here again — National Poetry Month. If you were taught, as poet Billy Collins joked, that you had to “tie a poem to a chair and beat a confession out of it ... to find out what it really …
Letters deadline for May 18 elections
One month ago, I wrote about three areas in which the U.S. needed to catch up with the rest of the world’s wealthy nations : health care, education and child care for workers. Of these, the mo…
Compare U.K. health care model with U.S.
Nowadays, I hear employers talking about being unable to hire workers for the jobs they have. I am told that some people are not taking responsibility for their bills and rent, because the gov…
Oregon lawmakers did something good recently when they approved Senate Bill 513, a measure that requires high school students to complete one semester of civics before they graduate.
It might surprise you to learn that some members of the Oregon Legislature believe convicted rapists, murderers and people who exploit children for pornography in certain cases spend too much …
Fewer Americans are attending traditional church services. Fewer are attending Catholic schools, too.
Republicans and corporate America have been conjoined for so long that any breach in the bond is almost impossible to imagine. Yet we’re seeing one now, thanks to the GOP’s decision to give fr…
Testing has become quite controversial in education. We often hear about students’ test scores or teachers reporting test results. Then in social groups, you might experience people discussing…
The recent letters on the Center for Human Development by Barbara Smutz and Hazel Spiegel were great. The staff at CHD has done so much for the citizens in this area of Oregon and we are so in…
On Thursday, April 15, the Oregon Public Utility Commission will hold its final hearing on Idaho Power’s 2019 energy plan, which includes the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line. I’ve urge…
People ask, “Is that still going on?” Yes, it’s true the massively destructive Boardman to Hemingway (B2H) transmission project is still under review. Each time we’ve asked folks to speak out,…
A large percentage (43%) of Oregonians do not believe they can make their community a better place to live, according to a recent Oregon Values and Beliefs Center survey. That figure becomes a…
I would like to propose Union County get a BottleDrop, BottleDrop Express or bottle return center. There are a number of them in Oregon already, mostly on the west side of the state.
The Oregon Legislature is poised to approve yet another gun mandate and while the battle lines over such issues are clearly drawn, the real lesson for voters is they must remain involved and w…
Pushback against a “meatless day” proclaimed by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis last month was predictably vigorous. It was part of the “war on rural Colorado,” said a state senator who runs a cattl…
It’s not a bad thing that we’re talking about election systems in the spring of an off-election year, even if the tenor of the discussion is (unsurprisingly) decidedly partisan.
