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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Posted inCity of Salem Land use

Eight large white oaks to be killed for a new Costco store in Salem

What's the value of eight lives? Is it greater or less than the desire of Costco to build a new Salem store on the graves of the deceased? I'm talking about the lives of large white oaks, not humans. But those are important questions to tree-loving people like me, which includes many of the neighbors who live near the Kuebler Gateway Shopping Center where the Salem Costco is planned to be relocated. Here's a photo of a beautiful white oak in our yard. I wanted to show it before discussing the rather dry details of what Costco is proposing to…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Here’s what Trump didn’t say about the pipe bombs

I'm going to channel my inner Stephen Colbert for a moment. Today seven pipe bombs were discovered to have been sent to six people: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, John Brennan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Maxine Waters. Holder was supposed to get a bomb, but it was misaddressed, so it was sent to a fake return address belonging to Schultz. Because these were all people that Donald Trump has insulted, sometimes viciously, and Trump has called journalists the "enemy of the people" -- Brennan's bomb was sent to CNN, where he works as an analyst -- along with calling…
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Posted in2018 election Oregon politics

Here’s my 2018 midterms endorsements: every Democrat on the ballot, plus Measure 102

Since I have a blog called Salem Political Snark, it's dawned on me that I should be making endorsements for both local and statewide races, plus Oregon ballot measures.  This doesn't mean anybody will pay attention to what I say, but us bloggers don't do what we do because we believe we're influential. We just can't help ourselves, being addicted to putting what's going on inside our head into words on a computer screen, then onto the Internet where others can eavesdrop on the state of our psyche. So here's how I'm feeling two weeks before the midterm election on…
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Posted inNational politics Oregon politics

Oregon is #1 in ease of voting. I show why.

Oregonians are appropriately proud of our beautiful, prosperous, progressive state. Now we have another reason to feel superior: Oregon is the easiest place to vote among all 50 states. A professor in the Political Science Department at Northern Illinois University was the lead author of the study, described in "New study scrutinizes time and effort it takes to vote in each state." Here's the characteristics that make for easy voting: Oregon has had mail-in voting since 1998, when we became the first state to conduct all elections by mail. We have automatic voter registration via drivers license info, thanks to…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Never lose your anger at Jamal Khashoggi’s murder

I've become obsessed with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi Arabia hit squad, and the Trump administration's despicable attempt to absolve Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of that country (who goes by MBS, which I translate at Murdering Big Shit) of a horrendous crime. Since Khashoggi's death, many times a day I check my iPhone or laptop to see what new information about his murder has come to light. I'm pleased with my anger. I don't want to lose it. And I hope that lots of Americans express their own anger in the upcoming mid-term election by…
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Posted in2018 election Oregon politics

Danny Jaffer shows why Oregon, and Salem, needs to elect Democrats

Vote for Democrats in the November 2018 election. I was convinced of this before our doorbell rang a couple of hours ago, but I'm even more convinced after chatting with Danny Jaffer, who is running to represent Oregon House District 23. My wife, Laurel, has been hand writing postcards urging our neighbors out here in rural south Salem to vote for Jaffer. So I'd heard his name, and knew he was running against Republican Mike Nearman. That was it, though. Talking with Jaffer about his background and why he thinks he can win left me with a really good feeling.…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

City of Salem Community Report has pluses and minuses

First off, it's great that City officials have released a 2018 report on how the City of Salem is making progress on goals in the recently adopted Strategic Plan. Download 2018-annual-community-report The report is nicely designed, attractive and clear. It's easy to read. And it reassures citizens that the folks at City Hall have some clear direction in regards to how Salem needs to change for the better. I've only given the report a quick read, but wanted to share my first impressions of the 2018 Annual Community Report. The high-level goals in the Strategic Plan strike me as pleasantly vacuous.…
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Posted inCity of Salem Comprehensive Plan

Salem Comprehensive Plan needs simple vision, not complex platitudes

I'm sort of ashamed to admit it, but once upon a time I was a professional planner. I was an executive service manager with the State Health Planning and Development Agency (SHPDA) back in the 70s and 80s.  Looking back, what I'm not proud of is how I and other SHPDA staff elevated technical criteria over human values without giving much thought to why we did this. I bring this up because I'm worried that the City of Salem effort to update the Salem Area Comprehensive Plan will make the same mistake: expect citizens to conform to the values of…
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Posted inNational politics

Let’s throw Kavanaugh’s angry, ugly words back at the GOP

A week ago Brett Kavanaugh said, in his off-the-rails bizarre tirade against his made-up Democratic conspiracy to deny him a Supreme Court seat, "What goes around, comes around."  Nobody really knows what this threat meant, not even Politifact.  Doesn't matter. Those of us who are opposed to Kavanaugh, which includes everyone who cares about women's rights, can appropriate those words for our own purposes. If Kavanaugh is confirmed this weekend, as seems highly possible, we need to channel our entirely justified outrage at how the White House manipulated the FBI background check for its own political purpose into making the…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Solid evidence that Russia caused Trump to win the 2016 election

Just when I thought I couldn't be more disturbed about Donald Trump becoming president, an article appeared in the October 1, 2018 issue of The New Yorker that got me increasingly angry and upset.  Why? Because Jane Mayer, who wrote "Russia Won" (online title: "How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump"), describes in convincing detail the findings of Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a scholar with solid credentials who wrote a soon-to-be-released book, Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President -- What We Don't, Can't, and Do Know. Download How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump |…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Hillcrest is for sale. The City of Salem should buy it.

The State of Oregon has put the 45 acre Hillcrest property up for sale. According to Wikipedia, Hillcrest was a youth correctional facility that closed on September 1, 2017.  I learned of this from Mark Wigg, who is active in promoting more walking/cycling trails in Salem, along with more parks. Below you can read a presentation Wigg emailed me, which I presume has been sent to City of Salem officials and City Council members. What he says makes a lot of sense. In a follow-up email, Wigg added: "Living accommodations for 300. Gym kitchens classrooms pool." After the presentation I'll…
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