Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

City Manager is OK with a developer illegally removing trees

I'm no fan of Donald Trump's re-election campaign themes, but I do believe in law and order -- along with almost every other American. Unfortunately, the City Manager for the City of Salem, Steve Powers, has said that he is OK with the Public Works Director (Peter Fernandez) bestowing a tree removal permit on a developer (Thomas Kay) 105 days after the trees were cut down without a permit. Michael Slater, a strong advocate for trees in Salem, sent the following letter to Powers. Slater shared the letter on Facebook. You'll see that he made some strong arguments about why…
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Posted inCity of Salem Coronavirus

City officials allow Covid super-spreader event in Riverfront Park

I have a tough time figuring out who is more irresponsible: (1) The Salem Awakening organizers who held a Christian event in Riverfront Park attended by hundreds of people in violation of Governor Brown's order limiting outdoor gatherings to no more than a hundred individuals.  (2) The attendees, most of whom weren't wearing masks and failed to engage in required physical distancing.  (3) Officials with the City of Salem who have been allowing Salem Awakening to use the park without a permit for most of the summer, and who did nothing to control last Thursday's super-spreader Covid event. I'm going…
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Posted inCity of Salem Salem Police Department

Rubber bullet lawsuit undermines credibility of Salem Police Department

I'm changing my mind about the Salem Police Department. By and large, I've believed that Salem has been fortunate to have a well-run department marked by honesty, integrity, and a willingness to admit mistakes. Sure, the department's actions during this year's Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd were questionable at best and outrageous at worst. Using tear gas and playing nice with armed counter-protesters put chinks in the Police Department's "well-run" reputation. To me those chinks widened to a crevasse after I read the front page story in today's Statesman Journal by Whitney Woodworth, "Protester sues city,…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

I’ve got an important question for Trump supporters in Salem

In 2016, Donald Trump got 38% of the presidential vote in Salem, while Hillary Clinton got 49%. So when I go grocery shopping, as I did today, likely around a third of the people I see are Trump supporters. (I'm hoping his support has slipped a bit during the past four years.) Obviously there's a wide gulf between conservatives and progressives these days. Yet being a moderate sort of progressive, in no way do I view those who want another four years of Trump as crazy. Having been raised by a fiercely Republican mother, who never wavered on her conservative…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Trump’s use of the White House as a political prop — disgusting

After more than three and a half years of enduring Trump's disgraceful presidency, I thought my psyche had become inoculated against further outrages. How much lower could Trump morally go than rock bottom? But when I saw this image on Twitter last night, I realized the answer was, as low as he can get away with until he leaves office. Walter Shaub is a former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics. Being 71, and interested in politics for almost my entire life, I've seen countless photos of the White House. This is the first time it has ever…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

City official issues tree removal permit 105 days after they were cut down

Peter Fernandez, the City of Salem Public Works Director, is still doing outrageous tree stuff -- seven years after public records that I got proved that Fernandez made an unethical backroom deal with a bank president to have five beautiful, large, healthy downtown trees removed for no good reason. The newest Fernandez outrage is well-documented in an appeal by the Southwest Association of Neighbors (SWAN) of a tree removal permit that was issued on June 25, with an effective date of June 28, even though the five trees were cut down on April 15.Download Salem Heights Tree Removal Permit Appeal…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

“End of suburbs” one of countless Republican Convention lies

The good news is, my brain survived -- watching part of the first night of the Republican National Convention. Yes, it came close to exploding at times (actually, many times), but I was able to press the "stop" button on my remote fast enough to avoid serious damage to my truth-loving neurons. The bad news is, just about everything else.  Given all the GOP talk about the Democratic Convention being too dismal and dark, with the Republican Convention going to be all Reagan'esque sunshine and positivity, I was thinking that maybe that actually would happen. Nope.  Fear and trembling before…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Mary Trump reveals Trump’s pathologies in her compelling book

Sure, we all know what a pitiful human being Donald Trump is. Weak, a crybaby, narcissistic, egotistical, incapable of empathy -- to name but a few of his pathologies. But it took reading the book by his niece, Mary Trump, a Ph.D. psychologist, to make me fully appreciate how badly our country is being served by a president who is utterly incapable of meeting even the most basic demands of the office he holds. Last week Barack Obama made a right-on comment in his speech at the Democratic National Convention. Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't.…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

Salem City Hall, where staff always are right and concerned citizens wrong

We here at the world headquarters of Salem Political Snark, which just happens to be Salem, Oregon, absolutely love well-reasoned factual blog posts with a healthy dose of snark. Especially when those posts haven't been written by us. (Well, me, though there's always me, myself, and I, the unholy trinity.) So here's a big snarky thumbs-up to the always-interesting Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger for including these lines in a post today, "City Council, August 24 - Nonsense on Broadway at Pine." This is a real problem at the City. They have trouble admitting they are wrong. It sure seems like…
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Posted in2020 election

Four reasons why I’m loving the 2020 Democratic National Convention

Via CNN, so far I've watched every minute of the two hour prime time broadcast of the Democratic National Convention. After two days of pleasurable viewing, I'm planning to do the same tonight and tomorrow. Being a political junkie who has watched every Democratic convention for as long as I can remember, I was prepared to be underwhelmed by this year's virtual/online format. Instead, I'm finding it way more inspiring than all of those previous in-person conventions. Here's four reasons why. Crisper. This online convention moves along with pleasing crispness. There's no dead time. Speeches are short. Last night I…
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Posted inCitizen involvement Third Bridge

Mark Coutis slammed by West Salem Neighborhood Association Ethics Committee

Ouch. The Vice-Chair of the West Salem Neighborhood Association (WSNA), Mark Coutis, has been slammed hard by an ethics committee formed to look into his offensive remarks about Black Lives Matter, along with other subjects -- including how Coutis insulted people in his role as a WSNA Facebook site administrator. What Coutis did was the subject of a public comment at a recent Salem City Council meeting. You can read the juicy details in a report issued by an Ethics Committee formed to look into a complaint filed against Coutis. I've shared screeenshots of the PDF file below.Download WSNA Ethics…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Trump’s attack on Postal Service needs to backfire on him

With a 91% approval rating, the U.S. Postal Service is American's favorite government agency. So Trump's attacks on the USPS and mail-in voting should lead to a substantial backfire upon his already-depressed approval rating and re-election prospect. But this won't happen all by itself. Defenders of the Postal Service and mail-in voting have to apply maximum pressure, keeping this issue front and center in the minds of voters from now until election day. A few days ago I started following the American Postal Workers Union on Twitter -- @APWUnational. I seem to recall that they had something like 60,000 followers…
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Posted in2020 election

Denyc Boles killed water project funding she’s taking credit for

Republican State Senator Denyc Boles should make "Hypocrisy" her middle name. Locked in a close election fight with Democrat challenger Deb Patterson, Boles is bizarrely trying to take credit for $20 million in funding for water projects in Salem and Turner that she helped block back in February of this year when she and other Senate Republicans walked out of the legislature to stop a climate action bill. Here's the Boles press release, which I've branded Inaccurate, because it is. Oh my, Denyc Boles is so proud of her hard work to get the money for water system upgrades. Actually,…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

Kamala Harris will be a great VP. Then, a great president.

At 1:14 pm today Joe Biden personally texted me with the news that he's chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate. Thank you, Joe! I appreciated being the first to know, along with the millions of other people who had recently texted FIRST to 30330. The news lifted my spirits for the rest of the day. Well, along with doing some marijuana shopping this afternoon. Along that line, Harris apparently now is in favor of marijuana legalization. Hopefully she can bring President Biden along on this issue. Not that I'm counting my presidential election chicken before it is hatched.  Even though…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

Salem City Council ignores City Council vote. What’s going on here?

As Alice in Wonderland said, curiouser and curiouser. That's how I felt today about the Salem City Council after taking a closer look at the public records I got regarding the city's purchase of a house on Taybin Road in West Salem. My first blog post based on the records was "Salem City Council bamboozled by staff on Taybin Road property purchase." But now I'm wondering if the council is bamboozling itself. Or at least, acting at odds with itself, which is much the same thing. As background, below is an image showing the portion of Marine Drive that the…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Salem City Council bamboozled by staff on Taybin Road property purchase

First, I'm delighted to, for what I think is the first time, use "bamboozled" in the title of a blog post. It's an old-fashioned word, but entirely apt in this case, for City of Salem staff did indeed deceive members of the City Council by underhanded means -- along with the citizens who rely on public officials to do things in an honest, straightforward fashion. I know this because yesterday, August 3, I finally received public records that I requested on June 28. So it took five weeks and $324.25 to get documents that confirmed what I and others strongly…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Progressive Salem

Salem Progressive Agenda survey results are an appealing vision

It's easy to get disheartened about the current state of our nation. So much disharmony, discord, and dissatisfaction with how things are going,  So my spirits were boosted when I saw the results of a Salem Progressive Agenda survey of 103 citizens -- all progressives, not surprisingly, me being one of them. Here's the first question. Now, likely some people in Salem will look at this and other questions (more accurately, statements) on the survey and think, "Yikes! I sure hope this doesn't happen!" I could be wrong -- an ever-present possibility -- but my optimism leads me to think…
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Posted inCoronavirus Donald Trump

Trump pushes COVID advice by doctor who warns against sex with demons

Whew. I can relax. A few days ago I read that Trump was vowing to act more presidential now that the election is less than 100 days away. Since I desperately want him to lose, I was worried that Trump was going to at least sound as if he valued the advice of public health experts when it comes to combatting the COVID crisis, even if he continued to act otherwise. I should have known that Trump was incapable of pretending to be a science-loving leader of our nation, since that goes against his compulsion to attempt to lie his…
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Posted inCoronavirus Jobs

List of Salem businesses that got PPP loans is mildly interesting

The title of this blog post won't go down in the annals of provocative headline writing, for sure. But it's accurate. I toyed with other titles, like "If you're too wired to sleep, read this" or "Here's something more interesting that watching paint dry... barely." Still, I hate to let a good PDF file go to waste, so here's a list someone sent me of the businesses in Salem that got PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) money from the federal government. The highlighted names of businesses in the list are ones that this person felt deserved attention. Download PPP Loans in…
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Posted inPolice reform

Why the Portland Black Lives Matter protests are so aggravating

Emotions aren't always a reliable guide to truth, but often they indicate that a deeper truth should be sought.  Something has been bothering me about the nightly Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, just fifty miles away from where I live in Salem, but light years away in terms of how the community is handling police reform. To offer up one example, in Salem the City Council has embarked on a  months-long performance audit of the Police Department by an outside consultant. This will be a deliberative, fact-based look at how the department carries out its functions, including whether some…
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