Posted inBroadway Commons Religiosity

Two reports of how Broadway Coffee House/Commons discriminates against LGBT people

Someone contacted me about a year ago about how the Broadway Coffee House here in Salem refuses to allow gay people to be employees, because the business is controlled by the Salem Alliance Church. As you can read below, the pastor of the church believes this gives them a religious license to discriminate, sort of like how Agent 007 had a license to kill, even though under normal circumstances this is illegal.  According to the Oregon State Bar, it is legal for religiously affiliated businesses to engage in discrimination against LGBT people. But this doesn't make it right. Here's what…
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Posted inCity Council

Wow! City Council rejects approval of Costco plan

I'm shocked. And pleasantly surprised. After hours of impassioned testimony, most of it against relocating a giant Costco big box store to property adjacent to residential neighborhoods in south Salem, the City Council just voted to reject the staff approval of the Kuebler Gateway Shopping Center. The vote was 5-3, with Mayor Bennett and Councilors Lewis and Nanke voting against Councilor McCoid's motion to reject the staff OK of the plan for the shopping center. Councilors Andersen, Hoy, McCoid, Cook, and Ausec voted in favor of the motion. Congratulations to the neighbors who testified eloquently about the problems Costco and…
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Posted inUncategorized

Tell the Salem City Council, “The plan for a new Costco sucks.”

OK, don't take the title of this blog post literally. Actually I don't recommend that you email the City Council prior to their Monday, December 10 meeting and tell them that the plan for a relocated Costco in south Salem sucks.  (email address under that link is citycouncil@cityofsalem.net) Rather, express yourself with synonyms. Like, really bad idea; traffic nightmare; White Oak killing spree; doesn't fit with residential neighborhood. Check out two neighborhood appeals of the Costco plan for more specific ideas.Download SNGA Appeal Letter dated November 7 2018Download Anuta Appeal Letter Dated November 7 2018 I'm a Costco member. So…
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Posted inCarole Smith Downtown

Downtown Cherry Pits debuts as Salem satirical newsletter

Great news for humor lovers in Salem! We now have a local version of Silverton's Silvertongue Apple-Peal. Carole Smith has fashioned Downtown Cherry Pits -- Exclusive to the Slutsman Journal as our town's satirical newsletter.  After Carole told me that some copies were available at Lullu's (357 Court Street), I stopped by yesterday and scored the debut issue. It's more fun to read on paper, but here's a PDF file for general online consumption.Download Downtown Cherry Pits Dec. 2018 newsletter The newsletter also can be read in bite-size bits via the posts on the Downtown Cherry Pits Facebook page. Be…
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Posted inHumor

Silvertongue Apple-Peal newsletter is a delicious Silverton satire

Humor is deeply subversive. It's maybe the best way to get under the skin of the Powers That Be. The Onion does a great job of this on the national level. Yesterday I was delighted to be sent a copy of a first-rate satirical newsletter created by someone in Silverton. Oops, Silvertongue. Which is close to Mt. Angle. Pleasingly, the masthead says, "A Leisure Service of the Statesman Urinal."(The Silverton newspaper, published by the Statesman Journal, is called the Appeal Tribune.) Not an original putdown of the Statesman Journal, but funny nonetheless. I haven't poured over every detail of the newsletter,…
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Posted inUncategorized

Battle of the Books continues with Salem Public Library on defense

There's something both marvelous and disturbing about the vigorous debate happening now (geez, I sound like CNN) between Jim Scheppke, an ardent supporter of all things library'ish, and Sarah Strahl, director of the Salem Public Library, regarding tens of thousands of books being removed from the core collection.  Marvelous, because I love it when someone who cares deeply about an issue here in Salem takes on the Powers That Be with fierce intensity. In this case, literally, because as you can read below, Scheppke takes issue with what Steve Powers, the City Manager, is saying about the library's severe cutting…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Library expert criticizes “core book” policy of Salem Public Library

Jim Scheppke knows a lot about libraries. He was the State Librarian of Oregon for two decades, and a librarian for 32 years. He doesn't like that the Salem Public Library is removing tens of thousands of books from its core collection to make room for new, trendy books.  Scheppke's opinion piece in today's Statesman Journal, "Preserve the core collection at Salem Public Library," struck me as well-written, nicely factual, and highly persuasive.  Here's some excerpts: At the beginning of October, the management staff at the Salem Public Library launched a project to permanently remove as many as 100,000 books…
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Posted inCara Kaser City Council Third Bridge

Third Bridge closer to death after tonight’s City Council meeting

Observing via CCTV the Salem City Council debate tonight whether to move ahead with the Salem River Crossing, or Third Bridge, felt like I was watching a movie where you know the bad guy is going to be killed at some point, but you know that isn't going to happen until a lot of drama and close calls have built up the suspense. Like I said yesterday in "Jim Lewis dreams the impossible Third Bridge dream," it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Lewis' motion to have City staff respond to issues raised in a legal setback that remanded…
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Posted inCity Council Jim Lewis Third Bridge

Jim Lewis dreams the impossible Third Bridge dream

Ah, so cute! I find it adorable how some people -- in this case, a Salem City Councilor, Jim Lewis -- imagine that they can do something that seems impossible.  Like, fly by flapping their arms. Or make their cat do tricks. Or... get the City Council to vote in favor of moving ahead with a Third Bridge, a.k.a. the Salem River Crossing, at a council meeting tomorrow (Monday, November 26). Lewis was narrowly re-elected last May as the city councilor for Ward 8 in West Salem. He ran a sleazy campaign, wrongly claiming that his opponent, Micki Varney, wanted…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Salem Public Library removing 30% of print book collection. Resistance is mounting.

Trigger warning: if you love books, and hate to see them mistreated, you might want to partially cover your eyes when viewing the photo below. I'm sorry that this blog post has to be so graphic, but as the saying goes, A picture is worth a thousand words. (And this post is much longer than that.) Jim Scheppke, a community activist and ardent library supporter, worked for the Oregon State Library for 25 years, 20 of them as library director (this is the library for the State of Oregon, not the Oregon State University library). Today he sent me this…
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Posted inDowntown

Downtown Streetscape plan suffers from Salem’s parking space mania

I'm no mental health professional, but I'm prepared to diagnose a malady that is rampant in Salem: parking space mania. Some of the symptoms are: -- Feeling that something is seriously wrong if it isn't possible to park in a downtown block where your intended destination is located. -- Driving in circles around downtown looking for an on-street parking space even though a totally free parking structure with plenty of open spaces is close by.  -- Freaking out at the prospect that any number, even just a few, of on-street downtown parking spaces will be lost, even if this would make the…
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Posted inSalem Reporter Statesman Journal

Sunday’s Statesman Journal had zero local content on opinion page

Salem's one and only daily newspaper, the Statesman Journal, is falling deeper into a well of mediocrity. The newest outrage against journalistic excellence was obvious in yesterday's Sunday paper where, for the first time in the 41 years that I've been reading the Statesman Journal, to my recollection, there was precisely zero local content on the opinion pages.  A post on the Salem Community Vision Facebook page nailed the outrageousness of this: NO LOCAL OPINION IN THE SUNDAY PAPERCharles Sprague is turning in his grave today. When he was the editor of the Oregon Statesman he wrote a daily editorial…
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Posted in2018 election

Midterm election’s meaning revealed by Ed Dover at Salem City Club

There's lots of ways to look at the results of last Tuesday's midterm election. But some ways are wrong -- like the attempt by Republicans to spin the election as a GOP win. Today Ed Dover spoke the truth about the midterms at an engrossing Salem City Club presentation, "Patterns and Meanings of the 2018 National, Oregon, and Mid-Valley Elections." Dover is a retired Professor Emeritus at the Western Oregon University Department of Political Science and Public Administration. This was Dover's 10th post-election talk to the Salem City Club. I've heard a bunch of them. Dover has an astounding grasp of…
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Posted inLand use

Neighbors appeal Costco shopping center

Good news. The headline of a Salem Reporter story says, "Neighborhood appeal puts Kuebler Gateway Shopping Center on Hold." Here's how the story starts out: Costco’s road to a new location in south Salem is not over after neighbors appealed the city’s recent decision to allow the Kuebler Gateway Shopping Center. The appeals trigger what could be months of more deliberation. The South Gateway Neighborhood Association, and three neighbors acting on their own through an attorney, cited a number of reasons why Salem planners should not have approved the nearly 200,000-square-foot project in late October. They contend the shopping center…
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Posted in2018 election

Progressives, here’s some cheerful midterm election commentaries

In a Washington Post piece I read today, I saw a saying: "Republicans are naturally triumphal even when they lose and Democrats tend to get depressed even when they win." This seems generally true. But like I said last night, I'm pleased with how the midterm election turned out. Sure, it was distressing to see Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams, and Beto O'Rourke fail to win their races. But here in Oregon we enjoyed a genuine Blue Wave, and Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives is a really big deal.  FiveThirtyEight.com is projecting a gain of 37 House seats,…
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Posted in2018 election

Midterm results: I predicted I’d be sad, but actually I’m happy

A few days ago I predicted how I'd feel given certain results of today's midterm election. Below I've highlighted in green the outcomes that became reality. I added the Beto O'Rourke loss to the last two scenarios, having neglected to include it in my original post. You can see that right now -- 10:07 pm -- I thought I'd be in a mood of Sad, but things could have been worse. But actually I'm feeling Happy, though mildly disappointed. Here's my best guess why. (It has to be a guess, because it's difficult to pin down emotions.) First, I spent…
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Posted in2018 election

Ecstasy or agony? I forecast my midterms reaction.

Looking back, I realize that my despair over Trump beating Clinton in the 2016 election was caused in part by my failure to anticipate what I thought was unthinkable: Donald Trump becoming the President of the United States.  So this time around, I'm going to envision various emotional states of mind I might be in late Tuesday night -- election day -- or on Wednesday morning, if voting results of the races I most care about aren't all in before I go to bed. I need to say that while I just said races I most care about, the absence…
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Posted inCity of Salem Comprehensive Plan

Salem Futures project was killed by clueless conservatives

Echoing a Who song: Salem, let's not get fooled again. In the early 2000s a pioneering, far-reaching, creative Salem Futures project was killed by clueless conservatives. Our town has been paying the price ever since, as I'll discuss below. Here's how someone active in land use issues at the time recently described to me the ax'ing of Salem Futures. (Note: LCDC stands for Land Conservation and Development Commission. It oversees the Department of Land Conservation and Development, DLCD.) Mayor [Janet] Taylor killed the Salem Futures project after almost two years of work and a million dollars. LCDC was giving Salem…
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Posted inCity of Salem Cycling

Cycleshare program will show how difficult it is to bike in Salem

It's great that a bicycle sharing program, Capitol City Cycleshare, is set to begin around late January to mid-February. Aside from giving people in Salem an easy and inexpensive way to cycle, another benefit is that the program will show how difficult it is to ride a bicycle in most parts of our town.  An email message I got from Evan Osborne, who is leading the Cycleshare effort, says that seven stations are planned, with money currently available for six stations.  Hello Cycleshare Sponsors and Advocates, I am happy to announce all legal teams are in consensus with a formal…
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Posted inOregon politics

City Club debate on Measure 105 shows wisdom of voting “No”

I've already voted NO on Measure 105, which would overturn Oregon's successful sanctuary state law that prevents law enforcement agencies from using state resources to detect or apprehend people whose only violation is federal immigration law. Nothing I heard at today's Salem City Club debate on Measure 105 made me question in the slightest how I voted.  The debate was between Cynthia Kendoll (on the left) and Andrea Williams (on the right). Kendoll is president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform. Williams is executive director of CAUSA, Oregon's statewide immigration rights organization. Williams' expression as Kendoll was speaking mirrored how I…
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