If you aren't on this ping list and are interested
in articles about Oregon, please FReepmail me.
Posted on 06/03/2012 9:38:51 PM PDT by ChocChipCookie
Our family is considering a possible move and we're looking at Oregon and central-northern Idaho. A friend lives in Bend, Oregon, and we'll be checking out that area next month.
I'd love to hear about specific areas of Oregon and Idaho to avoid, what the current job and housing markets are like. Husband is an electrical contractor with 17+ years experience in commercial, residential, and light industrial.
Thanks in advance.
There is an active Conservative movement here in Oregon and we are pushing back. If you want work there is quite a bit in Portland around Intel but times are tough. Idaho has much lower taxes and more sanity.
Pray for America
ChocChipCookie considering relocating.
Spend a winter in north/central ID before you make your final decision.
If you are thinking about Portland or Salem, consider Newberg. It is sort of half way between the two and is a nice small town with a Christian university.George Fox, a Quaker school).
Based on 2011 figures of the 50 states and D.C., Oregon ranks as follows with regards to taxes:
Ranked the highest in State Income Taxes at 8.60%.
One of 5 states with no sales tax.
Ranked right in the middle for property taxes (25th) .
Ranked the 8th highest at excise taxes on Gasoline ($0.30 per gallon).
Ranked in the middle for excise taxes on Cigarettes ($1.18 per pack).
Ranked the second highest for excise taxes on Liquor ($23.30 per gallon).
The reason I was looking into this is because I used to live in southern Oregon and the wife has expressed an interest in retiring there. Based on my research, Texas is looking better.
There are a few manufacturing outfits in northern/panhandle Idaho. Generally speaking, the house build industry is dead and not likely to come back for a while. Electrician probably better find something more in the industrial side. Not much of that except mining and some machining businesses in northern Idaho. Many of the lumber mills will have electricians on staff.
Southern idaho has its share of industry from heavy manufacturing to electronics. Being high desert the south is quite different from the north half of the state.
We moved a small high tech business to Idaho going on 8 years ago. Just south of Lewiston - ‘bout halfway between Boise and Coeur d’Alene. You will want to spend a month or two in midwinter before deciding - unless you have lived where ‘winter’ is. Definitely 4 seasons.
In our town’s case the largest employer is Federal Government. 80% of the state is government owned. While that has provided a stable source of employment in the past, all it would take to devastate the economies is a big spending cut by congress. Local economies will be hard hit until other income sources come about.
Politically, Idaho is as interesting and can be as screwed up as anywhere else, just much more conservative as a whole. Politics can get pretty real here - I remember a number of years back the county commissioners had an open debate on setting up a county plan. Ended up getting the topic tabled as nooses were tossed up on the desk in front of them. Still don’t have a plan.
In general, the state is easy to get along with, makes only a few annoying nanny state laws. And taxes are mostly low.
“But instead of Bend, check out Redmond, just 16 miles north there on 97. A nice central hub.”
Do you live in Redmond? I will be visiting there in mid September for a few days and I see that there is a lot of “fly fishing” tour guids, however my daughter and I would like to go regular fishing. Do you know if there is any placy that rents boats and regular fishing gear?
In addition, any recommendations for local eateries, bars, etc?
Thanks for the great news about the Tri-Cities.
Just a couple weeks ago I was looking at the county unemployment map for Washington state, and I came away with the impression that WestWA was doing significantly better than EastWA.
I stand corrected.
Portland is dimocrat as is the Eugene area.
Are you moving for a job? Vacation home?
The rest of the state is red, though. Just those two blighted areas.
I also live in the Tr-Cities. Know of several families who have had their homes on the market over a year. The “growth” is occurring in certain select sectors while others stagnate. When the federal government cuts off Hanford cleanup money those sectors that have been strong will die, while those stagnate now will still be stagnate. The economic diversification line is B.S. — it is most all tied to Hanford.
Idaho has fewer liberal/progressive/morons. In Oregon, the progressive wetside has an economic and political choke hold on the conservative eastern half of the state. Most of the former Californians are on the west side, trying to recreate their lost paradise with the same stupid liberal paradigms that they destroyed CA with.
Rural cleansing on steroids as the only thing the land use planning commission will approve on the dry side is windmills.
It’s a decent place to live if you’re outdoorsy or want to farm. No sales tax if you are retired on a fixed income, but if you have to work for a living, it’s going to be harder.
I live in Bend and have for 10 years. Great town; population is around 80,000 for the county.
It’s “High Desert” area w/lots of sage, rabbit brush and Juniper trees. Directed to the west are seven extinct volcanos approximately 9000’ high - Mt Bachelor, a great ski resort, is one of them. Bend is at approximately 3800 feet elevation; Sunriver, a great resort area to the south, is a little over 4000’ elevation. The summers are 2nd to none - very rarely does it get into the 90’s and you might have a 100 degree reading or two in July or August. The humidity is low - -20% - and it cools off every night into the 40’s or 50’s except, again, for the night or two in July or August. There are numerous hiking/biking trails and numerous lakes and streams in the area for fishing.
The winters are long and cold. (We have a freeze warning tonight) We had -10 degrees on Halloween 3 years ago; not a lot of snow but you can count on cold temps from mid October to the end of May.
Job situation is not good. U-3 unemployment is around 10% and wages in Central Oregon are about 20% below what Portland, Salem & Eugene is paying for skilled workers. I’d visit but would consider Idaho -
Pray about it!!
I’ve lived in Grants Pass for 26 years, before that I lived in North Idaho for many years.
North Idaho is beautiful, but the weather can be harsh. Grants Pass, on the other hand, has pretty mild wether but if you want snow you can drive half an hour to good winter conditions.
Oregon is VERY liberal, dominated by the Leftist counties up North, but GP is conservative, although is changing slightly.
We just voted down a levy, by the way...and the county sheriff is decimated. The jails are releasing dozens of criminals and the DA is no longer prosecuting most crimes. That may play a role in coming here.
Gun ownership is very liberal here. Private sales are legal and class III weapons such as suppressors and machine guns are legal, and CCW is easy to get.
As far as the jobs market, I know many people who are unemployed and numerous teachers, cops and government workers are either being laid off or can’t find any work to speak of.
Ed
As to a liberal strangle-hold—the last Republican to win a gubernatorial election was Vic Atiyeh, who was re-elected in 1982. Only Washington has a longer Dem streak—they last elected a Republican in 1980.
As a lifelong Oregonian, I am in the minority. Think of Oregon as Northern California, as most residents are California imports. Here is a website to give you economic data for various counties in Oregon:
http://www.qualityinfo.org/olmisj/OlmisZine
No need to brief me on how to think of Oregon—I know her well—my family ties go back more than a century, with a great-great grandmother buried in Salem. I was born at a naval base courtesy of ‘Nam, but my partents beat it back to the south coast as soon as Dad got out—when I was about five months old. I grew up in Coos County, and it was clear that the county had no economic future to speak of—at my ten-year high school reunion no one with a college degree had settled any closer than Portland, five hours away, and only a couple of the guys had managed to stay in county. The girls had done better, because some had managed to marry older guys who had jobs. This was out of a graduating class of nearly 300 from the largest high school on the coast.
Far Northern California is much better than Portland. If the State of Jefferson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(Pacific_state) had succeeded (and seceded), I might still be on the South Coast today. As it stands, with the near-total collapse of the economy of Coos County, my parents and three sisters have ended up in Ohio, and I am ensconced in Canada, leaving only my brother behind.
At one time we were going to go to Bend, until we went there one winter....It was bone chilling frigged, wind blowing, ice covered roads, gloomy etc. Idaho can also get severe long winters.
We quickly decided to stay in Southern California....lol
We need conservatives to move here, so we can get a semblance of freedom and liberty back.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.