At last Monday's City Council meeting, T.J. Sullivan, board chair for the Salem Main Street Association said in the public comment period, "There are a couple of people who are about the complaints who aren't welcome in downtown Salem anymore."
Sullivan was referring to the complaint against Mayor Julie Hoy that I filed with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. (Another person filed a similar complaint.) That complaint was found to have merit after a preliminary review, and a full investigation of Hoy and city councilors will take place.
It appears that Sullivan has been watching too much Fox News lately, since he believes that as the chair of the Salem Main Street Association he has the authority to decide who gets to "migrate" to downtown. As far as I know, American citizens can't be banned from part of a city because they criticized a conservative mayor. But I haven't been keeping up on all of Trump's executive orders.
The good news, I guess, is that Sullivan didn't call for my deportation — though maybe this blog post will further incur the Wrath of T.J. and I'll be hit with an even more absurd insult.
After someone pointed out to me what Sullivan said at the city council meeting, I replied that he must have been joking and needed to see the video. However, if his remark was supposed to be humorous, I have to admit that it didn't come off that way, especially since it followed a mention that members of the city council supposedly couldn't attend a Salem Main Street Association meeting because of the ethics complaint.
That's ridiculous. Oregon's public meeting law prohibits members of a body like a city council from conducting "serial communications" where deliberation of an issue takes place privately outside of the public eye. It doesn't prevent city councilors from attending meetings of the Salem Main Street Association.
Here's the video of the city council meeting. I've made it start just before Sullivan makes his public comment.
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Welcome to the new world order.
I’ve been banned from commenting on Salem Reporter. Several years ago I was called into the mayors office and told to quit being a volunteer for my neighborhood association because “I had been around too long.” Some people think they can control others. It’s seems to be some sort of ego thing. I’m seeing it as a sign of effectiveness. When people see our opinions and influence as power, they want to take it away. I don’t let it happen. If you’ve struck a nerve, I say more power to YOU!
Brian,
The mayor and city council are volunteers that give many hours of service to the city. The city attorney’s job is to make sure the mayor and council stay within legal limits. He failed. He probably knew they might be breaking the public meeting rule and did nothing.
This is the same city attorney that reviewed and approved the contract with Avelo, which he now says we can’t get out of without severe penalty. Would you keep an attorney who had you sign that contract? Having many decades of experience managing multi-million-dollar contracts, that contract is one of the most biased contracts I have seen. Does the city have a conflict-of-interest clause in employment contracts? The Avelo contract is so bad, I wonder if Avelo is giving gifts to some staff.
The mayor and councilors rely on staff, and it is the city staff that has brought us the deficit, housing problems, and poor transportation planning. We need council to be more demanding of staff.
It’s cowardly and unprofessional that this biased article conveys more opinion than objective news and it’s author does not identify himself or herself.
> It’s cowardly and unprofessional that this biased article conveys more opinion than objective news and it’s author does not identify himself or herself.
Jean, just to set the record straight about your comment above: (1) I identified myself in the blog post as one of the people who filed an ethics complaint against Mayor Hoy. I included a link to the complaint, which ends with my name. My email address is in the right sidebar of my blog; it’s my name followed by a “1.” So I obviously identified myself.
(2) This blog post is absolutely objectively true. I correctly quoted T.J. Sullivan. I included a video of the City Council meeting where Sullivan said that I and the other person who filed an ethics complaint aren’t welcome in downtown Salem anymore. So it’s your comment on my post that is in error. I accept your apology. Everybody makes mistakes. In this case it just happened to be you, not me.
Sure, I made some snarky comments in jest about Sullivan. Note that my blog is called Salem Political Snark.
What neighborhood association meeting would Julie Hoy attend or did attend? Ward 6 where she was required to live in but never did? Or ward 1 where her business license is expired? Perhaps if she lived in Ward 6 she would have done something about the deaths at coral building caused by torture! All to give millions in fraudulent funds to the owner, a former deputy district attorney.They are still committing fraud to this day!