Posted inDowntown

Thirty great ideas for streetscaping downtown Salem

This afternoon I took part in the Trees and Landscaping Focus Group for the Downtown Streetscape Project. About 20 of us, citizens and consultants, had a spirited 90-minute discussion in the Library's Anderson Room about downtown trees and other vegetation, though the discussion also included broader Streetscape topics. Here's 30 great ideas generated by the Focus Group: (1) Eliminate a lane of traffic on some downtown streets with three or four lanes so there's more room for trees and people on the sidewalks. (2) Define the personality of both downtown and the entire city, then make Streetscape reflect that personality.…
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Posted inCity Council Larry Tokarski

Why did Larry Tokarski start, then stop, construction of Lone Oak Road?

Last Monday the Salem City Council voted 7-2 to form a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District that's supposedly needed to pay for a missing north and south section, plus a bridge over Jory Creek. I talked about this in "City Council poised to make public pay for improvements, not Larry Tokarski." Tokarski is the developer of Creekside, through which the north section of the so-far unbuilt Lone Oak Road would pass. The mystery is why Tokarski never was required to pay for that part of the road, plus the bridge over Jory Creek. He started construction of these improvements in…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Larry Tokarski

City Council poised to make public pay for improvements, not Larry Tokarski

Tonight the Salem City Council is having a public hearing on forming a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District in the Creekside area. Basically, as I understand it, a developer (Garrett and Alice Berndt) has requested that buyers and owners of lots in the area be saddled with a total of $7,347,000 in fees to pay for needed improvements to an extension of Lone Oak Road.  This is a complicated subject, and I don't pretend to be familiar with all of the details surrounding this issue, which has been festering for many years. Arguments have gone back and forth about who…
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Posted inDonald Trump

After one year of Trump, my predictions about him get a C+

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of my January 20, 2017 blog post, "On Trump's first day as president, I predict his next four years." Overall I give myself a C+ grade on the ten predictions, since at this point five seem True, four are equivocal, and one is absolutely False.  Here's what I said Trump would do, along with comments on my soothsaying. While it certainly feels as if those four years should be up by now, in much the same way that a painful root canal seems to take forever, obviously my first prediction merits an Incomplete:(1) There's a…
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Posted inWomen's March

Salem Womxn’s March wrongly criticizes inclusivity of 2017 Women’s March

I wish the organizers of the Salem Womxn's March that will be held on January 21 would stop criticizing the 2017 Salem Women's March for supposedly not being inclusive enough.  This is flat-out wrong.  The speakers at the 2017 event included an African-American woman, her daughter (who sang), and a lesbian woman. Sign language interpreters were on stage for the hearing-impaired. Special seating up front was reserved for those in wheelchairs, or anyone needing those seats.  I filmed the entire march of 4,200 people who filled the streets of downtown Salem. The video is part of this web page I…
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Posted inCarole Smith Downtown

Carole Smith critiques the City of Salem streetscape project

I'm sharing an email message that Carole Smith, a downtown business owner and resident, sent to me recently. She isn't happy with how the City of Salem streetscape project is being conducted, to put it mildly. Well, neither am I, as I wrote about in "Downtown Salem Streetscape project will ignore streets." The whole emphasis is on sidewalks. As shown above, "alleys and roads not part of [project] scope." So they really should have called this a Sidewalkscape project, which is much more limited than a true Streetscape plan -- such as the one proposed for Salem several years ago.  This…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Third Bridge

City of Salem Third Bridge conspiracy theorizing: “Something’s amiss here”

I agree with the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger who said Something's amiss here in a Tuesday post that is more interesting than the title portends, "At the MPO: Work Program and Rule-Making Updates for the TAC." Here's the juicy part of the post. The Technical Advisory Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets today, and there is no important action item.But the agenda does have a couple of other things to note.Work on the formal Work Program continues, and if there is any sign that the remand by LUBA on the land use matters had any real consequences, I'm still…
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Posted inDowntown Salem Main Street Association

Here’s some problems with the Salem Main Street Association

In April 2017 I wrote a blog post called "New Salem Main Street Association debuts with questions and concerns." Nine months later, those questions and concerns remain.  First, it's peculiar that this group remains so secretive, since the kickoff event had some lofty goals: (1) Advocates for downtown Salem businesses, property owners and residents(2) Implements marketing and promotion of downtown Salem (3) Manages funds related to the economic vitality of downtown Salem Yet the Salem Main Street Association still doesn't have a web site, aside from the one above. The small print says, "We're under construction. Please check back for an…
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Posted inOregon politics

Vote Yes on Measure 101. It’s a no-brainer.

Here in Oregon there's only one thing on the January ballot, Measure 101. And it's a no- brainer: VOTE YES I say this after spending an hour today hearing both sides make their best cases for "Yes" and "No" at a Salem City Club meeting. Even though I came in expecting that Yes would have the better arguments, I was surprised how weak the No arguments were. Measure 101 asks Oregonians to decide if $210 to $320 million worth of assessments on insurance companies, some hospitals, the Public Employees Benefit Board, and managed care organizations go into effect, as passed…
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Posted inNational politics

Here’s 5 good reasons not to shop at Salem’s Hobby Lobby

Even if you love Hobby Lobby for its craft supplies, here's some very good reasons not to shop at the Hobby Lobby store that just opened in the Willamette Town Center mall (which used to be called Lancaster Mall).  The biggest reason was given in a Slate podcast interview with Candida Moss, a Professor of Theology who wrote a book about the company's efforts to Christianize this country, "Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby."  After hearing Moss talk about some Hobby Lobby horror stories that I'll summarize below, at about the 21:14 mark Mike Pesca, the interviewer, says…
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