McMinnville, Dallas, or Corvallis (Salem, Monmouth: school, university, tax rates)

[plh55]

A few questions for the readers/writers here. My wife and I are considering a move to Oregon since we love it everytime we are up there and she has family there. The areas we really like are, as you can see in the title, McMinnville, Dallas, and Corvallis. Which would you recommend based on these questions? Some things that might help your advice. I am a police officer. We are conservative. We have one son and will hopefully have three or four kids.

1. Which cost of living is better?
2. Are there any problems you see with any of these cities?
3. How is it adjusting to the rain? (I hear the weather always changes anyway.)
4. Which police department is considered better? (Please also lump Salem PD and Monmouth PD and the county sheriff's [Benton, Polk, Marion, Yamhill])
5. Is there a difference in tax rates by county?
6. Are there any other places you would recommend us to look at or to specifically avoid, and why?
7. Any other thoughts you have?

[Silverfall]

All of these areas are very different.

Of those areas, Dallas is the cheapest, then McMinnville, then West Salem, then Corvallis.

Corvallis is a university town, so not sure I would call it particularly conservative, but I think the students at the University would beg to differ.

http://www.oregon.gov/DOR/STATS/docs...303-405-07.pdf has a list on page 124 or 125 of the tax rates broken down by cities. This is for the 2006-07 tax year so it is not totally up to date, but it will give you an idea of differences.

Dallas is a very small friendly town. I say it's on the conservative side, but not overly so. Obviously there is a range of beliefs.

West Salem is more like suburbia. I think it has a very different feel that Dallas or McMinnville which maintain more of that small town feel to them.

Maybe if there are specific attributes in a town such as wanting to be near a private religious school, etc that might be helpful for people to give you suggestions.