In 1971, Grace Rye moved with her husband, Jack, to a home about half a mile outside of Monmouth when he took a job as an administrator at Western Oregon University.
Rye, 92, and now a widow, discovered in February that the city was proposing to swap 90 acres of land within its urban growth boundary with a 75-acre parcel that nearly borders her country home. The prospect of hundreds of new houses and apartments rising nearby doesn’t appeal to Rye.
“It’s not a good idea,” she said…