Posted inCity Council City of Salem Steve Powers

City Manager’s performance evaluation reflected in Salem water crisis problems

Steve Powers is the Salem City Manager. The City Manager is hired with the approval of the City Council, then he or she is in charge of all other City of Salem employees. Someone sent me a copy of Powers' January 2017 Performance Evaluation, noting that some deficiencies noted in the evaluation seemingly were reflected in how Powers has been handling the toxic algae water crisis.  Before discussing those deficiencies, some background info. News of Powers being hired as Salem's City Manager broke in August 2015, as I wrote about in "Salem has a new City Manager -- Steve Powers."…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Salem’s “10-days-until-you-get-sick” water advisory wasn’t settled science

The folks at City Hall who made the indefensible decision to keep Salem residents in the dark for seven days after s sample was taken that showed high levels of a cyanotoxin in the water supply are trying to claim that a "10-day window" rule permitted this.  In a Statesman Journal story, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez said: City officials “hung our hat” on EPA guidelines that allow for a 10-day period to make treatment adjustments to fix the water. After 10 days, the buildup of toxins becomes more serious. So let's take a look at how the 10-day EPA…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City Council City of Salem

Five strange things about Friday’s special City Council meeting about water problem

I'm a fan of strangeness. But there's pleasing kinds of strange and disturbing kinds of strange. Watching yesterday's special City Council meeting about Salem's toxic algae water crisis via a Facebook feed gave me the latter sorts of feelings...disturbing. Here's five things that struck me as strange: (1) That the meeting needed to happen at all. The City Council just had a meeting on Tuesday. But City of Salem officials botched their response to dangerous levels of toxic algae cyanotoxins in the water supply so badly, a special meeting on Friday was necessary.  This wasn't exactly the biggest emergency Salem…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City of Salem

Key questions remain about botched response to Salem’s toxic algae water problem

Today we learned that Salem's water is still unsafe to drink for young children, pregnant women, dialysis patients, and other people with compromised immune systems.  But there's a lot still left to learn about how City and State officials botched their response to last Saturday's test results showing unsafe levels of toxic algae in the water system of Salem and other municipalities sharing that system.  (1) Why the four-day delay in alerting people about the problem? I talked about this in an earlier post, "Salem-area water safety alert could have been handled better." Mayor Chuck Bennett, who is out of the…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Salem-area water safety alert could have been handled better

Nobody's perfect. But everybody can learn from their mistakes. So from my vantage point, here's what I see could have been handled better regarding the toxic algae warnings in Salem-area water systems that went out yesterday. It sure seems like people should have been notified earlier. A Statesman Journal story reports that City of Salem staff knew last Saturday, May 26,  that unhealthy levels of toxic algae had been detected. (Lacey Goeres-Priest is Salem's water quality supervisor.) Water was sampled late last week and officials received the results of testing the water on Saturday, said Goeres-Priest. The results showed toxin levels…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City Council Salem Weekly

Great idea: Salem could have a local online paper

The Statesman Journal is doing a poor job of reporting on local news here in Salem. But what's the alternative? Well, an opinion piece in The Guardian is about how people in East Lansing, Michigan formed a local paper, East Lansing Info. About a decade ago, my historic neighborhood was facing the possibility of a giant commercial development being built just down the hill from us by a company known to have a troubled history. Worried about our way of life, the president of my neighborhood association and I started going to city council meetings. Watching our city government came…
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Posted inCity Council Creekside Golf Course Jackie Leung

Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District debate continues

A few days ago I blogged about newly-elected city councilor Jackie Leung's effort to fulfill a campaign promise by attempting to get the Salem City Council to reconsider its decision to form a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District. The Reimbursement District would raise money to pay for road improvements by collecting between about $4,000 and $10,000 from lot owners in the south Salem area when a home is built on their property. It's unclear whether the City Council will undertake a reconsideration of the Reimbursement District, which has to be done at next Tuesday's council meeting, because an agenda item implements…
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Posted inCity Council Creekside Golf Course Jackie Leung

Support fairness. Stop the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District.

Fresh off her upset victory in the Ward 4 City Council race, Jackie Leung is making good on her campaign promise to work hard on preserving open space in the Creekside neighborhood. She recognizes that unfettered development can't be allowed to diminish the quality of life for Salem residents. So Leung is asking the City Council to reconsider and overturn its recent narrow 5-4 approval of a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District. The Reimbursement District collects between $4,000 and $10,000 from lot owners in the south Salem area when a home is built on their property, then gives that money…
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Posted inCreekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Creekside HOA letter shows how messy the golf course fight is

It's a real battle going on between the Creekside Homeowners Association and the owners of the Creekside Golf Club, Larry Tokarski and Terry Kelly.  Recently I came across a May 9, 2018 letter that the Creekside HOA sent to its members, describing what was going on with the Association's fight to prevent the golf course from being turned into a subdivision, as Tokarski and Kelly are trying to do. The two-page letter is interesting reading. Here's a copy. Or click here for an online version, Download Letter from Creekside HOA All I know about this legal battle is what I've…
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Posted inJackie Leung Progressive Salem

Five takeaways from Jackie Leung’s Salem City Council victory

Like I said last Tuesday on election night, Jackie Leung's 53%-46% victory over Steve McCoid in the Ward 4 City Council race warms my progressive heart. Though I used the word "apparent" in that post, Leung has a 237 vote lead over McCoid, which is very unlikely to be erased even though some lingering votes may remain to be counted. There are lessons to be learned from political newcomer Leung's upset victory over an incumbent city councilor, especially when Micki Varney's 48%-52% loss to incumbent Councilor Jim Lewis in the Ward 8 race is considered.  So here's my five takeaways…
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Posted inCity Council Jackie Leung Progressive Salem

Jackie Leung’s apparent victory over Steve McCoid warms my progressive heart

It's election night. Time for me to say "I told you so!" to those progressives who either thought Jackie Leung couldn't best Steve McCoid in the Ward 4 Salem City Council race, or felt that that McCoid was an acceptable moderate, so endorsed him even though Leung was by far the better candidate. Have a look, Councilors Tom Andersen and Chris Hoy, both of whom endorsed McCoid. Have a look, board members of Progressive Salem, who ignored requests to support the more liberal candidate in the Ward 4 race.  Now, a 184 vote lead in Ward 4 likely will hold…
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Posted inCity Council Creekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District staggers across City Council finish line

Watching last night's City Council final deliberation on a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District reminded me of a demolition derby. The plan that was approved on a 5-4 vote was the last one standing, like a bashed-in car with smoke streaming from its hood, oil leaking all over, fenders missing, dents everywhere.  Not a pleasant sight, but in the eyes of a majority of City Council members, better than nothing. The Council considered four alternatives to the original Lone Oak Reimbursement District plan that landed with a resounding "no thanks!" thud at a public hearing a while back, which led…
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Posted inStatesman Journal

Statesman Journal seems to be on the track of “How a newspaper dies”

As previously reported, I've heard from a seemingly reliable source that the Statesman Journal, Salem's daily newspaper that's owned by Gannett, will cease being a print publication in 2019. This would mark another milestone in the paper's steady journalistic decline, both in quantity (number of reporters and original stories) and quality (investigative reporting is minimal, especially on the local level). Today I read a Politico Magazine piece, "This is How a Newspaper Dies," that provided some fresh insights into what is happening with the Statesman Journal. The subtitle of Jack Shafer's highly interesting story is It's with a spasm of…
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Posted inCity Council Larry Tokarski Statesman Journal

Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District is a bad idea

Below is an opinion piece about the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District that I submitted to the Statesman Journal a month ago. I never heard back from the editorial board one way or the other, which in itself is a sad commentary on how far Salem's so-called "paper of record" has fallen. The Statesman Journal has published exactly nothing about this subject, even though it is a highly controversial issue that's consumed a lot of City Council time, and is of considerable concern to residents of the Creekside area, along with hundreds of lot owners in south Salem who would be…
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Posted inOregon politics

Dennis Richardson talks about redistricting at Salem City Club

Secretary of State Dennis Richardson is an Oregon anomaly: a Republican elected to statewide office. This probably helps explain why comparatively few Salem City Club members attended his talk about redistricting today, since most members lean leftward. Another reason might be that the recommendations of Richardson's pet project, a Redistricting Reform Task Force, have been politically dead ever since, well, six months before the Task Force issued its final report in October 2017. In April 2017 Oregon Democrats said Richardson's plan was dead on arrival. Which is sort of strange, given that the Task Force recommendations hadn't been released yet. …
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Posted inCity Council Jim Lewis Statesman Journal

Statesman Journal endorses conservative white men and bridge tolling

Well, if you believe what people in Salem need is more conservative white men on the City Council and being charged a $1.50 each way toll to cross the Willamette River between downtown and West Salem, you'll love the Statesman Journal endorsements for the two contested council races on the May election ballot. Because the newspaper's editorial board -- which is made up solely of three Statesman Journal employees, no community members -- just endorsed the re-election of Jim Lewis and Steve McCoid to the City Council.  So the editorial board said NO to Micki Varney and Jackie Leung. And…
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Posted inCity Council Jim Lewis

Jim Lewis wrongly claims Micki Varney wants “miserable traffic”

City Council campaigns in Salem usually don't sink to the level Jim Lewis displayed in a video where he claimed that his opponent in the Ward 8 race, Micki Varney, "wants miserable traffic." I learned about this offensive lie in a comment Marcus Solomon left on a Facebook post of mine. Solomon captured this image of Lewis' video before the image was edited out: Shame on Councilor Lewis for engaging in the sort of political crap that usually only rears its ugly head at the state and national level. Obviously Micki Varney doesn't want miserable traffic. She has stated that she's…
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Posted inCity Council Steve McCoid

Leung vs. McCoid City Council race isn’t getting attention it deserves

In this Year of the Woman, politically and culturally-speaking, I find it surprising that Jacqueline (Jackie) Leung's Ward 4 City Council race against incumbent Steve McCoid isn't getting more attention.  Five seats on the Salem City Council are on the May 15 ballot, the Mayor's seat and the seats of the councilors occupying the four even-numbered wards: 2, 4, 6, 8.  Only two of these races are contested: Jackie Leung vs. Steve McCoid in Ward 4, and Micki Varney vs. Jim Lewis in Ward 8. Mayor Bennett is unopposed, as are councilors Tom Andersen (Ward 2) and Chris Hoy (Ward…
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Posted inCity Council Tom Andersen

Councilor Tom Andersen’s self-congratulatory video needs some context

Understand: I've got nothing against self-congratulation. I love to tell myself, "You're doing a great job, Brian!" So there really wasn't anything all that unusual in Tom Andersen's 5-minute CCTV video where he asks voters to support his re-election to the Salem City Council, even though he is running unopposed. But as I watched the video, where Andersen talks about his various accomplishments during his first four-years as a city councilor, I kept thinking, I wish he'd give more credit to those who set the stage for those accomplishments.  Of course, it is almost a given that politicians are going…
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Posted inCity Council Jim Lewis Third Bridge

Jim Lewis isn’t telling the truth about tolling a new Salem bridge

In a Statesman Journal piece, "Ward 8 candidate Jim Lewis shares reasons why he wants to continue work on Council," Lewis says he's against tolling on a new bridge across the Willamette River. As a matter of clarification, I want to dispel a rumor that I in some way support tolls for the existing two bridges and the new bridge, nothing could be further from the truth and neither myself or the residents of West Salem would allow tolls to ever be a part of the formula for funding. But at the April 24, 2017 City Council meeting, Lewis cast…
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