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Oregon News
Winter storm warning issued for Oregon's Cascade passes. What to know
Statesman Journal | By Zach Urness
A winter storm warning has been issued for Oregon's Cascade Mountain passes from Jan. 6-8 for heavy snow and high winds, according to the National Weather Service in Portland.
POLITICS
Editorial: Make 2026 the year of Oregon’s comeback
The Oregonian Editorial Board
It’s only through hindsight that you can recognize the point when you bottomed out and began a comeback. As we kick off the new year, it’s too soon to see in which direction Oregon is headed.
Will this be the year that enough elected officials, business executives, community leaders and voters work together to put Oregon on a path to recovery? Or will bickering – both across parties and within them – keep us laboring at cross purposes?
Even the most optimistic or oblivious of Oregonians should see the warning signs of what’s at stake.
Oregon has lost nearly 9,000 jobs in the past year – undermining not only those families’ economic stability but our income-tax dependent state’s as well. Iconic office towers in downtown Portland are selling for pennies on the dollar, part of a trend of plummeting property value that is eroding revenue for local governments. Our dismal record of housing and caring for people in need faces new threats amid changing federal policies and declining financial assistance. Oregon’s educational system fails to help students master basic skills, even as the future grows increasingly complex and demanding. And years of little to no population growth reflect how greatly Oregon’s national reputation has tarnished.
These aren’t manufactured issues by Oregon haters to make the state look bad. They’re not scare tactics to bully elected leaders into succumbing to the whims of one special interest or another. These are structural threats that are crumbling the foundation for Oregon’s success and endangering the state’s ability to command its own agenda.
As we wrote last week, our leaders’ handling of turmoil in 2025 gave Oregonians reasons for both confidence and concern. There can’t be any confusion about which direction to take in 2026, however. They – and Oregonians as a whole – will need to make progress in these critical areas to ensure that we’ve turned the corner for good.
Remake Oregon’s business climate as a place for investment and growth: Private sector businesses, from corporate behemoths to small coffeeshops, drive our economy. They employ Oregonians whose income taxes power the state’s general fund; pay taxes and fees that directly support state spending, K-12 education and local governments; and deliver essential goods, services and amenities that Oregon communities need to thrive.
So, Oregon’s economic news of the past year – Great-Recession-level job losses, third highest unemployment rate in the country, business closures and out-of-state expansions – should grab the attention of every elected leader in the state. Growing our economy, particularly as the federal government ratchets down funding, is the only way that Oregon will come up with the money it needs to pay for its many priorities.
There are plenty of places to improve. Oregon’s competitiveness has dropped sharply in recent years, as additional mandates, added taxes and lower affordability all make the state a riskier place to do business. Oregon was ranked 21st just two years ago in CNBC’s top states for business but fell to 39th last year. In the categories of cost of doing business, cost of living and business friendliness, Oregon rated 43rd, 45th and 48th worst in the country, respectively.
Certainly, lowering or streamlining the state’s myriad taxes and reporting requirements could help. Businesses paid $3.4 billion more in state taxes in 2023 than just four years earlier due primarily to the new statewide corporate activity tax and paid leave payroll tax, according to an EY study commissioned by Oregon Business and Industry. The tax burden is even higher for businesses in the Portland area, where voters in recent years adopted a regional homeless services tax and a Portland clean energy tax.
But growing our economy must first start with a change in mindset among legislators and voters. Too often, they view businesses with hostility or ignore their warnings over consequences as irrelevant. They pass labor policies that are more expansive or generous than anywhere else in the country while dismissing the increased costs to Oregon’s employers. The governor and state leaders cannot claim to be open for business when they adopt punitive requirements that other states reject.
And they fail to recognize how Oregon sometimes gets in its own way. A statewide cap on rent increases, which has already been ratcheted down, is just one more factor discouraging investors from backing desperately needed housing development in Oregon. Oregon needs more land that can quickly be converted to industrial use, but land-use law makes it easy for opponents to block such progress through the courts. While businesses will certainly act to protect their own interests, policymakers should realize that keeping them around is in Oregon’s interests as well.
Halt our K-12 educational system freefall: Oregon embraces the bare minimum when it comes to educating students. The state has one of the shortest school years in the country, lets students skip the state’s annual standardized exam for any reason they like and has yet to reinstate a graduation requirement that was first waived for the pandemic.
Meanwhile, student test scores show that a majority of students aren’t meeting proficiency standards in math or reading and are still underachieving pre-pandemic levels. With districts poised to make significant cuts in the coming year due to insufficient funding, students will likely be receiving less help, not more.
While Gov. Tina Kotek has led significant investments in improving literacy for young students and championed an “accountability” bill for stronger oversight of poor-performing districts, that’s not nearly enough to address our dysfunctional system.
Among the needs: the state must have an honest conversation about education funding. The state’s 40-plus-year-old funding formula fails to capture today’s needs and may be shorting higher-poverty districts of some of the money they are owed. Legislators hound school districts to pay teachers more while sidestepping their own failure to provide enough money. Unfunded mandates and overwhelming pension obligations are starving instructional budgets. At the same time, districts and their boards must also be transparent with spending on any non-core responsibilities or contracts.
The state must also insist that students get at least the minimum number of instructional hours, rather than allow districts to close budget deficits by cutting school days as Reynolds School District is planning. School district budgets cannot be balanced by reducing an already short school year. Education leaders should also explore whether district consolidations could help preserve opportunities for students.
A strong public educational system isn’t just about fulfilling the most basic obligation to Oregon’s children; it’s also vital to attracting and retaining families and businesses who want a state that invests in its future.
Spend the public’s money responsibly: Want proof that Oregonians are fed up with the cost of living in Oregon? Consider the enormous popularity of a recent petition to refer $4.8 billion of new transportation taxes and fees to the November ballot. In a few weeks, organizers collected a quarter of a million signatures – 8% of the total number of registered voters statewide – easily qualifying for the ballot. Legislators will need to address in the short legislative session how to fill a massive hole in the state transportation budget, not to mention local agencies, which had been counting on a share of the new revenue.
The transportation tax referendum is one obvious example of Oregonians’ frustration with ever-increasing taxes, but Oregon faces a financial reckoning on multiple levels. Federal tax changes will lead to less Oregon tax revenue, due to the state’s automatic adoption of the federal tax code, while President Donald Trump’s budget bill will lead to less funding for Medicaid and other Oregon programs. Not only are Trump’s tariffs continuing to drive up costs for consumers and businesses, but retaliatory tariffs are hitting Oregon’s farmers, manufacturers and other exporters. And ongoing layoffs and slower job growth loom large over Oregon’s finances.
With such uncertainty, Oregon leaders must make the difficult decision of choosing which among its many priorities to protect and deciding how to fund them. And Oregon’s elected officials must work to earn back Oregonians’ trust in their spending decisions after passing such uniquely bad legislation as last year’s bill providing unemployment pay for striking workers, which hits school districts and other public agencies particularly hard. As the transportation referendum shows, even if Oregonians support a core service such as road maintenance, they will not easily accept big tax and fee increases amid an affordability crisis.
The same need for financial stewardship applies to local governments as well. As business license fees and downtown property tax revenue decline, Portland and Multnomah County are facing tightening budgets and difficult choices. Meanwhile, specialty taxes funding clean energy projects and preschool have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars more than expected. Elected leaders of both jurisdictions should ask voters to give them additional flexibility in how to use those surplus dollars to help cover essential services.
Revive the Portland core both economically and civically: Downtown Portland commercial office buildings have a 36% vacancy rate while longtime retailers, including Nordstrom Rack, are calling it quits. Even as other cities bounce back and are showing job gains since the pandemic, Portland’s downtown still bears its scars, as well as those of the 2020 protests-turned-riots and the shift to a work-from-home culture.
Public safety initiatives have helped improve the look and feel of downtown, and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s emphasis on reducing unsanctioned camping and open drug use should remain a key part of rebuilding downtown as a destination for Oregonians and visitors. His decision to call back roughly 700 managers and supervisors to full time, in-person work was also a smart move that increases foot traffic and better serves the public. The mayor should work with the business community to explore how to incentivize more workers to return to the office and what the city can do to keep businesses operating downtown.
Reviving Portland isn’t just about buildings, however. Portland has a number of promising initiatives that the city should support or help fast track, whether it’s through financial, logistical or political means. The renovation of the Portland Art Museum, which was funded almost entirely by private donations, should help further a conversation about how to re-establish the city as a top cultural and entertainment destination in the Northwest. Efforts to redevelop Albina, Portland’s historically Black district, offer a singular opportunity for the city to address past wrongs and support economic revitalization. And the purchase of the Portland Trail Blazers should lead to a clear commitment from the city, region and state to keep the team in Portland, even if that means helping finance a renovated arena.
All these initiatives are reminders of the many strengths Portland has and can build on for the future. The city and its residents should lean into them.
Get people housed: Kotek declared homelessness a state of emergency in January 2023. The city of Portland declared a housing state of emergency in 2015. And yet, despite spending billions of dollars in recent years into housing developments, rental assistance, social services and shelters, the housing and homelessness crisis hasn’t lessened.
Even when there’s progress in some areas, new problems keep cropping up. In Portland, about 1,900 taxpayer-funded affordable housing units sit vacant due to difficult application processes and rents that aren’t much lower than market rate. Affordable housing providers are on the ropes, financially. And as important as Wilson’s emergency shelter plan has been, it is only one part of the full spectrum of housing needed to move people from the streets to stability.
In a true emergency, policymakers don’t erect barriers to meeting the need. State and local officials must adopt that same urgent, focused approach by removing the financial and logistical obstacles blocking communities from adding housing or shelter. For instance, legislators should make explicitly clear that affordable housing developments are exempt from paying higher “prevailing wage” requirements, despite such rulings from Labor Commissioner Christina Stephenson for projects including a commercial space, as Oregon Journalism Project has documented.
Similarly, legislators should gear up for a review of Oregon’s land use laws to examine whether the nearly 53-year-old statute provides enough flexibility to accommodate a state population that has almost doubled since then.
Demand competence in government: The need for competent management and better execution of programs applies to all levels of government. The state’s bungled rollout of Medicaid dollars for rent assistance and Multnomah County’s little-used deflection center for drug users are among the many examples where outcomes failed to meet the goals.
But it’s especially relevant to the city of Portland, which completed a first – and rough – year under a new form of city government.
While Wilson focused primarily on his goal to open emergency overnight beds and begin enforcement of the camping ban, the 12 city councilors didn’t coalesce around many priorities, bickered about minutiae and failed to land a signature achievement. Although the Council certainly deserves more time than a year to prove this new format is an improvement, councilors must show they are capable of solving Portland’s biggest problems, especially as the city faces another year of potentially devastating budget cuts.
Oregonians also bear responsibility for ensuring an effective, transparent and accountable government. With so many key offices on the ballot this year, Oregonians should carefully consider candidates’ records and demonstrated competence when they vote.
Keep Oregon in charge of its agenda: Trump’s attempt to send troops to Portland was the biggest surprise to hit Oregon last year, but it certainly wasn’t the only one. Chances are 2026 will deliver plenty of new, unforeseeable challenges. That’s all the more reason for Oregon’s leaders and residents to continue to show the restraint, prudence and strategic action that they demonstrated throughout the federal troop saga. Oregon can stay in control of its priorities, but must keep its cool to do so.
Progress comes with ups and downs. But by the end of the year, Oregon’s leaders must be able to show that they’ve led the state to higher ground.
Northwest politics: Key races and issues to watch in 2026
KOIN | By Ken Boddie
2026 will be an important year for politics.
We’ll see midterm races, along with some important issues that’ll be up for a vote in our area.
For one, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Republican Senator Christine Drazan will face off against each other a second time. With spoiler Betsy Johnson not in the running this year, both candidates say Oregonians have a clear choice.
It’s the biggest race – but not the only one in Oregon – as Oregon and southwest Washington’s congressional seats are up for grabs.
Additionally, Oregonians will decide whether the transportation bill that struggled to pass the legislature will pass muster with voters already burdened with higher taxes and fees.
KOIN 6 Political Director Ken Boddie is joined by Dana Haynes, formerly of the Portland Tribune, to discuss.
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read outlines election priorities ahead of 2026 term
KATU
In an exclusive interview on Your Voice, Your Vote, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read provided insights into the election process and shared his priorities for the upcoming 2026 term.
Speaking just hours before the Elections Division verified signatures for a referendum petition, Read explained the verification process and its significance.
He also discussed his hopes for legislative changes during this year's short session.
Lincoln County commissioner dies days before recall vote
KPTV
Lincoln County Commissioner Claire Hall died Sunday days before a scheduled recall election. She was 66.
Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Hall had been in a Portland hospital amid “worsening health conditions” after a fall in September.
A recall vote was scheduled for Hall on Jan. 9, 2026. On Nov. 3, 2025, recall organizers submitted a petition to the Lincoln County Clerk claiming it contained 4,882 signatures. On Dec. 2, 2025, the clerk verified that enough signatures had been verified for a recall vote.
Venezuelan Portland business owner reacts to Maduro’s removal : 'We needed this'
KGW | By Jake Holter
Intense political debate erupted after the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday.
Many are questioning the legality of President Trump’s actions, as protests took place across the Portland metro area.
But when speaking with a Venezuelan American on Sunday, she said she was overjoyed that Maduro had been removed.
Trump’s Venezuela move prompts Portland and Eugene protests, draws backlash from Northwest Democrats
OPB
U.S. Senate and House Democrats from Oregon and Southwest Washington moved swiftly to condemn President Donald Trump’s Saturday morning announcement that the United States carried out a military strike in Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
Can Portland’s new government weather the sophomore slump?
OPB | By Alex Zielinski
Here are the biggest takeaways from the first year under a new era in Portland City Hall.
Councilor Mitch Green Defends His Priorities: “We Can Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time”
Willamette Week | By Sophie Peel, Anthony Effinger
Green says the city can concurrently focus on economic revival and ban foie gras.
TRANSPORTATION
TriMet proposes several changes, some cuts to address $300M budget gap
KATU
TriMet is proposing several changes and reductions to bus and MAX service later this year, including cutting some lines altogether, as it addresses a $300 million budget gap.
The latest round of reductions come after the public transit agency already identified about $150 million in other spending cuts, which focused on staff reductions and internal costs.
HOUSING
City of Sherwood holds vote to challenge new state housing laws
OPB | By Kristian Foden-Vencil
Over the last few years, the Oregon Legislature has passed a number of bills aimed at reducing red tape in the state, so housing can be built faster.
But the new laws tend to reduce a city’s ability to manage growth, and they have rankled some city officials. For example, it used to be that people living within 1,000 feet had to be notified when a new development was coming. But the state changed the law so only people within 100 feet have to be notified.
Bills like HB 2001, SB 1537 and SB 974 are aimed at making it easier for developers to build the homes that Oregon so desperately needs.
But the mayor of Sherwood, Tim Rosener, says rules in his city aren’t the problem, and he says the state is cutting local residents out of the democratic process.
HOMELESSNESS
Portland opens new overnight-only sober shelter in southeast neighborhood
The Oregonian | By Lillian Mongeau Hughes
The new 140-bed shelter is called SE Grand Recovery and is operated by Transition Projects, one of the largest homeless service providers in Portland. Unlike most shelters in Portland and Multnomah County at large, people staying at SE Grand Recovery are expected to be sober when they arrive. It is the second sober, overnight only shelter operated with public funding to open in the city.
Dysfunction at a Homeless Shelter? Follow the Money.
Willamette Week | By Sophie Peel
What started with a quirky, unassuming nonprofit leader in Rockwood led to questions about where $125 million in taxpayer funds went and what they accomplished. Those were questions no reporter had yet asked.
EDUCATION
Key takeaways from survey of 180,000 Oregon students
OPB | By Elizabeth Miller
Oregon uses state tests to track what students have learned in school. But it uses the “SEED survey” to learn about how students feel about school and what their experiences are like.
Analysis of Literacy and Poverty Rates Shows PPS Is Finding Success
Willamette Week | By Joanna Hou
About 30 Oregon elementary schools are exceeding expectations when analyzing third-grade literacy scores against poverty rates, and seven of those overachievers belong to Portland Public Schools, a national analysis by The 74 found.
NATURAL RESOURCES
Hazelnuts Are a Bright Spot for Oregon Agriculture
Willamette Week | By Khushboo Rathore
Although the total amount of cultivated farmland in Oregon is shrinking, filbert acreage is booming.
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
2 major Oregon employers announce mass layoffs
The Oregonian | By Matthew Kish
A second significant Oregon employer in as many weeks has notified state workforce officials that it plans a mass layoff.
Vacuum Technique said it will close its facility in Clackamas because of “changing business needs.” Seventy-eight jobs will be eliminated, according to a new filing with the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission. The filings are required when large layoffs occur.
The facility will close on June 30. Layoffs will begin on April 30, according to the filing. Workers were given notice on Dec. 9.
The news comes after Purelight Power, a Medford-based solar company, told state officials last week that it will be shutting down operations and eliminating 109 jobs, including 84 in Medford.
Oregon’s employers reported nearly 9,000 mass layoffs this year, topping the pace of job cuts during the worst days of the Great Recession.
Oregon Pacific Power customers to see slight rate decrease
Statesman Journal | By Bill Poehler
Electricity rates for Oregon customers of Pacific Power are going down starting Jan. 1 after a decision by the Oregon Public Utility Commission and years of significant rate hikes.
Beloved breakfast chain close to finalizing sale after closing 150 locations
The Oregonian | By Matt Durr
Big changes are ongoing for national breakfast chain Denny’s as the affordable eatery enters 2026.
The chain confirmed to PennLive this week that it completed a previously announced plan to close approximately 150 underperforming restaurants by the end of 2025.
CRIME & PUBLIC SAFETY
Portland man sues TriMet for alleged assault by security guards on MAX train
KATU | By Jennifer Singh
A Portland man has filed suit against TriMet after allegedly being violently attacked by two security guards on one of TriMet’s trains.
The lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Court on Dec. 22, claims assault, battery, and negligence for failing to keep James Han, the plaintiff, safe on the train.
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