Posted inCity Council Police reform

Derek Chauvin conviction just small step toward police reform

I'm glad that I was in my car, listening to CNN, when the judge read the jury verdict in the Derek Chauvin case. As I heard the judge say "guilty of second degree murder," "guilty of third degree murder," "guilty of manslaughter," my right arm made the same happy motion upward as the arms of the women below. But right next to this Washington Post headline story was a disturbing story of a police killing of a 16 year old girl in Columbus, Ohio, "Ohio police fatally shoot teen girl just before Chauvin verdict: 'This stuff just never ends.'" This…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Police reform

Police budget should be cut to pay for crisis response team

City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke is pushing for Salem to have a crisis response team similar to the CAHOOTS program that has been successfully used in Eugene since 1989.  Here's a description of CAHOOTS, courtesy of the White Bird Clinic. 31 years ago the City of Eugene, Oregon developed an innovative community-based public safety system to provide mental health first response for crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction. White Bird Clinic launched CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) as a community policing initiative in 1989. The CAHOOTS model has been in the spotlight recently as our nation struggles…
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Posted inCity of Salem Trees

No-notice tree removals make Salem resident angry

It hurts to see a tree company truck pull up in front of your house, then watch workers remove a beloved street tree -- all with no communication from the City of Salem about why the tree needed to be destroyed. This happened to Heather, a resident of the Morningside neighborhood. The tree that was removed is the middle one in the photo below.  Heather told me in an email, "Survived the wild fires, survived the ice storm, didn't survive the City of Salem." Here's an email that Heather sent to Mayor Chuck Bennett on April 13. Yesterday the city…
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Posted inPolice reform

Let’s stop talking about “accidental” police shootings

Another day, another black man "accidentally" shot and killed by a police officer.  BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The suburban Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a 20-year-old unarmed Black man during a traffic stop Sunday apparently meant to fire a Taser but instead made an “accidental discharge” from her gun, the police chief said Monday. This is stretching the meaning of accidental beyond the bounds where the word makes sense. An accidental discharge of a gun would happen if, say, it was lying on a table during an earthquake with the safety off, fell, hit the floor, and somehow the…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

School board chair Chandragiri insults student journalist

Hard to see how this action by Salem-Keizer School Board chair Satya Chandragiri is anything short of flat-out outrageous.  Eddy Binford-Ross is editor-in-chief of South Salem High School's paper, the Clypian. After getting national recognition for covering Black Lives Matter protests last year, she spent months researching and writing a tell-all expose of how screwed-up the school board is, "Scandals, Special Interests and Dysfunction Plague School Board." Binford-Ross won a richly deserved 2021 Oregon High School Journalist of the Year award. She was set to be recognized at the April 13 school board meeting. But Chandragiri decided to put off…
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Posted inPolice reform Salem Police Department

So senseless: Salem police kill suicidal man

It's not as infuriating as the George Floyd murder by a Minneapolis police officer, but I'm still deeply bothered by a Salem police officer, Clinton Sealey, killing a suicidal man, Natzeryt Viertel. Neighbors say that Viertel struggled with mental health issues. He was threatening to take his life. He had a gun. That shouldn't be a death sentence. The Salem Police Department failed Viertel. He should have gotten help from the police, not bullets in his body. Almost certainly Chief Womack and others in the department will find excuses for why Viertel was killed. But those excuses won't bring Viertel…
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Posted inNational politics Political philosophy

I agree with an Ayn Rand objectivist on some things

Exciting day! (But since there isn't much excitement in my life, I get excited about small things.) This afternoon I had a pleasant talk with somebody I'd never met before. Doesn't matter where or how. I'll focus on the what of our conversation. After some introductory chit-chat, this guy said "I'm an objectivist."  "Tell me about it," I said, having a vague memory that this had something to do with the philosophy of Ayn Rand, but not being sure. Perhaps because I'd mentioned working in health planning back in the 1970s and 80s, he told me that objectivists aren't big…
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Posted inOregon politics

GOP having Oregon legislature temper tantrums

Long ago, I was the parent of a child who went though the "terrible two's." Temper tantrums were common. Crying fits happened routinely. So I feel for Democratic leaders in the Oregon legislature. They have to deal with Republicans who are the adult equivalent of immature children. The worst thing is, my daughter grew out of her terrible two'ness, while Oregon Republicans show no sign of acting responsibly. Almost certainly they're going to do the walkout thing again in this legislative session, thereby denying the 2/3 quorum that the Oregon constitution insanely requires for doing the people's business in the…
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Posted inNational politics

U.S. has most mass shootings because we have most guns

Atlanta, Georgia -- eight dead. Boulder, Colorado -- ten dead.  It's an all-too-familiar ritual, counting how many have been killed in the latest round of mass shootings that are unique to the United States. There's no doubt why our country has so many more mass shootings than comparable countries. We have way more guns than they do.  A 2017 New York Times story tallied up the mass shooting death toll in various countries from 1966 to 2012. When the world looks at the United States, it sees a land of exceptions: a time-tested if noisy democracy, a crusader in foreign…
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Posted inPolice reform Salem Police Department

Salem Police performance audit has weaknesses

Tomorrow night, March 15, the Salem City Council will have a work session on the draft performance audit of the Salem Police Department (SPD) that was prepared by a consulting firm. Here's the PDF file.Download Hillard Heintze Report for the City of Salem Oregon - 03-08-21 copy The consultants' report is nicely written and clearly laid out. But I've got some problems with it.  My main concern is on page 9: Although a formal, detailed staffing analysis was not part of the scope of our assessment, we noted the number of sworn officers and the total number of SPD employees…
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Posted inPolice reform Salem-Keizer school district

Latinos Unidos Siempre wins school resource officer fight

Congratulations to Latinos Unidos Siempre (Latinos United Always) for succeeding in their battle to have School Resource Officers -- police -- removed from Salem-Keizer schools. They're celebrating on their Facebook page. We have won!! After 25 years of resisting the school to prison and deportation pipeline today we have made a huge stride into being closer to abolishing it. The School Resource Officer contract will not be renewed thanks to the work of youth leaders in Latinos Unidos Siempre and to the many community members who have supported and fought alongside us.   During the March 9th Salem-Keizer School Board…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

Jesse Lippold and Kathy Goss are school board hypocrites

Don't be fooled by what school board members Jesse Lippold and Kathy Goss said in today's front page Statesman Journal story, "Salem-Keizer School Board election process considered discriminatory by some." The story is about a proposal to have school board members elected by people who live in one of seven zones, rather than by everyone in the Salem-Keizer school district.  This would make school board elections similar to Salem City Council elections. The person running for office would have to live in the zone they are seeking to represent, and only residents of the zone could vote for that person.…
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Posted inSalem Police Department

New Salem police chief says right things in City Club talk

Trevor Womack is the new chief of police in Salem, succeeding Jerry Moore, who retired. Today Chief Womack talked about his plans for the police department in a Salem City Club Zoom meeting. I came away impressed.  There was little, if anything, that I could criticize abut what Womack said either in his initial presentation or in the following lengthy Q&A period. And believe me, I'm not shy about criticizing City of Salem officials when I feel like they deserve it. Right off the bat, I liked Womack's openness when he spoke about his background and family life. He said…
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Posted inCoronavirus

Risky business: Salem companies that politicize Covid

The Salem Reporter has a story about the Glamour Salon owner deciding to call it quits. Glamour Salon, owned by Lindsey Graham, has reached out to the city of Salem about terminating the lease at its current location at 195 Liberty St S.E., according to Clint Dameron, the city’s real property services manager. ...In May last year, Graham publicly reopened her salon in violation of Gov. Kate Brown’s orders intended to slow the spread of Covid. Following the move, Graham was lionized by business owners and others who’ve argued the governor’s orders went too far, making appearances on right-leaning media,…
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Posted inCoronavirus

Oregon is failing seniors with flawed vaccine rollout

I'm 72. My wife is 71. We've fortunate to be fully vaccinated with two Pfizer shots owing to some unusually lucky circumstances.  It irks me, big time, that Governor Brown and the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) have decided to make our state a leader in failing to prioritize seniors for immunization.  Oregon is one of only a few states that decided to vaccinate teachers before seniors. Back on January 16, I wrote about this stupid decision in "Outrage: Oregon seniors to get Covid vaccine after teachers." This is a hugely irresponsible decision that is going to cause many old people…
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Posted inOregon politics

Oregon Senate Republicans walk out again

This is a political non-surprise. Totally predictable. Today every Senate Republican in the state legislature walked out for the fourth time in two years, denying Democrats the two-thirds quorum needed to do anything. And why wouldn't they?  Like I said in a 2019 blog post, "Oregon Dems surrender to Republicans like scared little mice," rewarding the GOP when they behave badly virtually guarantees that the bad behavior will continue. Every parent of a young child knows this, but not Democratic leaders. Here's what I said in 2019. The "you" refers to Senate President Peter Courtney. The institution of the Oregon…
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Posted inCoronavirus

Salem’s Enlightened Theatrics breaks Covid rules

Last weekend Salem's Enlightened Theatrics reportedly broke the Oregon Health Authority Covid rules by having in-person performances of a student production of Les Miserables that exceeded what is allowed for indoor entertainment. l've heard that at Saturday night's performance over 70 people were in attendance, food and beverages were sold and consumed, and some people were unmasked. Here's what is allowed for an Extreme Risk county, which Marion County is. The Enlightened Theatrics auditorium is over 500 square feet, so they could have only six people at each performance. Food and drink can't be consumed indoors. So it appears that…
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Posted inEnvironment Oregon politics

PGE’s storm communications are astoundingly inept

Along with a disturbingly large number of other people, my wife and I have endured a full week of no electricity after the February 12 ice/snow storm devastated much of Oregon. (Our dog is doing just fine.) How much longer will our electricity be off? Starting last Monday, Portland General Electric, or PGE, has considered this to be a secret not to be disclosed to their customers.  Whenever I log into my PGE account, I'm met with a cryptic "not available at this time" in the Estimated Time On part of our outage report. OK, I can understand that PGE…
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Posted inOregon politics

Ice storm disaster should prompt close look at PGE

Most of us don't pay much attention to our power company until the electricity goes off. Then we realize how important the electrical grid is to daily life. Well, "important" is an understatement.  "Absolutely essential" is a better way to put it. Without reliable electricity civilization as we know it can't exist. And this will only become more true as the United States, and the world, steadily moves away from fossil fuels. Electric cars obviously need electricity to function. So when the ice storm that hit Oregon last Friday cut power to hundreds of thousands of homes in our state,…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Jackie Leung

Controversy erupts over Leung missing out on City Council committees

Mayor Bennett's initial decision to assign Councilor Jackie Leung to only one Salem City Council committee (as an alternate, moreover) struck many people as a big deal about something, whereas I've come to see it as much ado about almost nothing. Jackie Leung I learned about what I'm tempted to call CommitteeGate (just gave in to that temptation) after reading several Facebook posts about this on a private progressive Facebook group. Some city councilors got as many as five, six, or seven committee assignments. My first reaction was that it did seem strange that Leung got such little committee love…
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