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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Posted inNational politics

Filibuster is a racist Republican relic. It needs to go.

Today I finished reading "Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy," by Adam Jentleson -- who was the former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid. The kill switch is the Senate filibuster. It allows a minority of senators, 41, to block legislation, since 60 votes are needed to end a filibuster in the 100-member Senate. No longer is it necessary for someone filibustering to stand on the Senate floor and keep talking until their voice (or bladder) gives out. Now, Jentleson says, all a Senator has to do is indicate that…
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Posted inCarole Smith City of Salem Downtown

Almost 3/4 of downtown Salem trash receptacles to be removed

Sheri Wahrgren, the Downtown Revitalization manager for the City of Salem, wants to get rid of most trash receptacles in the downtown area -- 44 of the 61 currently in use. See: Download Downtown Trash Receptacle Staff Report Before we dive deeper into this messy move, let's agree on this: the current trash receptacles are ugly, hard to use, and deserve to be featured in The Museum of Dysfunctional Trash Receptacles -- which I dearly hope exists. Carole Smith, a downtown resident and property owner, brought my attention to what Smith considers a trash travesty. Never one to mince words,…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Republicans should support Rep. Kinzinger’s Country First movement

Are you a Republican or a conservative-leaning independent? If so, are you fed up with how the GOP has become so closely tied to Trump, it has lost its way to such an extent it now embraces crazy conspiracy theories such as that Biden's victory didn't happen via a free and fair election? A "yes" answer, or even a "maybe," should cause you to check out Representative Adam Kinzinger's newly unveiled web site, Country First.  Kinzinger is an Illinois Congressman who was one of ten Republicans to vote for Trump's impeachment in the House of Representatives. I've seen him several…
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Posted in2020 election Salem Police Department

Freedom Celebration won’t include Salem Police Department

KSLM's right-wing radio talk show host Jeff Kropf has been plugging a Freedom Celebration to be held this Sunday, January 31. I've heard that Trevor Womack, the Salem Police Department chief, won't be attending even though he was invited.  UPDATE: I've heard that 400 people have registered for this event. Oregon's COVID rules for an Extreme Risk area (where this event will be held) say that a maximum of 50 people can attend an outdoor entertainment event. So it looks like the Freedom Celebration will be in violation of that rule. And it could be a super spreader event, given…
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Posted inOregon politics

Rep. Mike Nearman and Oregon GOP are dangerous crazies

Feel sorry for me. My wife and I have the unfortunate distinction of living in the Oregon House District held by Republican Mike Nearman -- the guy who held a door open at the state Capitol on December 21, allowing 50 militant protesters to stream into the building, setting off a battle with police that led to a dozen officers being pepper-sprayed by the intruders. Oregon, of course, was a rehearsal of sorts for the January 6 insurrection at the nation's Capitol in Washington D.C.. It's fortunate that Nearman isn't a member of Congress, or he would have been helping…
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Posted inJoe Biden National politics

Do away with the filibuster, or democracy will crumble

I'm happy that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were inaugurated three days ago. I'm pleased that Biden is signing a bunch of executive orders that undo the crap Trump inflicted on our nation. But a big loud flashing warning signal is going off in my brain: "Alert! Alert! Code Red! If the Democrats don't do away with the Senate filibuster, not only will Biden's presidency be severely hobbled, the foundation of our democracy will crumble into ruins." In no way is this an original idea.  Progressive political analysts who are much more knowledgeable than I am about goings-on in Congress…
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Posted inCoronavirus Kate Brown

Vaccinating Oregon teachers before seniors widely criticized

Governor Kate Brown's ill-considered order to give teachers the Covid vaccine before seniors is getting well-deserved media criticism. I'm no fan of this policy, having written my own critical blog post back on January 16, "Outrage: Oregon seniors  to get Covid vaccine after teachers." Here's news stories that came to my attention, along with an excerpt from each. Portland Oregonian"Watchdog: Why Oregon senior citizens have one of longest waits in country for COVID-19 vaccinations," by Aimee Green Seniors in Oregon will wait longer than almost anywhere else in the country to be eligible fo coronavirus vaccinations, a review by The…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

After a Trump headache, Biden’s inauguration was my aspirin

I feel so much better today. My (metaphorical) four-year Trump headache has gone away, thanks to the healing power of watching Joe Biden being inaugurated.  It's such a relief to see truth and decency return to the White House. Also, normalcy.  Biden is going to be a great president, I'm confident of that. But even if he turns out to be only an average president, that's hugely better than the sorry excuse of a president Donald Trump was. Most Americans are going to find it easy to admire Biden's warmth, empathy, and concern for both our country and the world…
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Posted inCoronavirus

Outrage: Oregon seniors to get Covid vaccine after teachers

If Oregon seniors weren't so justifiably afraid of coming down with COVID-19, they should be marching in the streets after Governor Brown announced yesterday that those 65+ would have to wait in line behind teachers to get vaccinated. This is a hugely irresponsible decision that is going to cause many old people to die.  According to the Oregon Health Authority, those 60 and over comprise 17% of Covid cases in the state and a whopping 91% of the Covid deaths. Yet Brown said at a press conference that I watched via You Tube that children are suffering from distance learning…
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