Posted inCity of Salem Downtown

Streetscape open house shows need for downtown streets to lose lanes

Last night the City of Salem held a second open house on the Downtown Streetscape project. I came away enthused about emerging ideas for improving the downtown area, but in an advance post about the meeting the Breakfast on Bikes blogger encapsulated the Big Problem with this project: The second Open House for the Downtown Streetscape project starts tomorrow, Tuesday the 13th, at 5:30pm. The project team hasn't published any new materials, so there's not much to say yet - other than to continue to push the City for changes to carspace. Until we grapple with the disproportion and zoominess…
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Posted inCity of Salem Creekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Salem City Council reconsiders making public pay for Lone Oak Road improvements

A citizen win! Last night the City Council voted unanimously to reconsider their decision to have the public pay for two extensions to Lone Oak Road in south Salem, rather than the developers who really should be footing the bill.  The impetus for the reconsideration was a letter from the South Gateway Neighborhood Association. Here's a screenshot of how it starts out. Download SGNA - Reconsideration of Lone Oak Reimbursement District There will be another public hearing on a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District at the council's March 26 meeting, if I recall the date correctly.  This is a complex…
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Posted inCity Council Creekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Neighborhood association asks City Council to reconsider Lone Oak Road decision

Good news! There's a chance Larry Tokarski, the Creekside developer, won't be able to walk away from his obligation to build an extension of Lone Oak Road after all.  The South Gateway Neighborhood Association has sent a letter to Mayor Chuck Bennett, Councilor Steve McCoid, and the other members of the City Council asking that the council reconsider its 7-2 decision to form a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District.  Download SGNA - Reconsideration of Lone Oak Reimbursement District Instead, as shown in the image above, the letter proposes an intriguing alternative idea. If Tokarski comes out on top in a…
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Posted inOregon politics

Pharmaceutical companies are behind full page ad opposing HB 4005

Don't be fooled by the full page ad in today's Statesman Journal opposing HB 4005, a bill that would require pharmaceutical companies to disclose pricing information about drugs they sell.  The group behind the ad, Caregiver Voices United, is a front for the pharmaceutical industry. Sure, you won't save at the pharmacy counter as a result of HB 4005 because the bill doesn't directly regulate drug prices. Rather, it brings some much-needed transparency into the price-gouging that pharmaceutical companies are notorious for. Here's an excerpt from an Oregonian opinion piece, "Oregon should force Big Pharma to fork over pricing info."…
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Posted inDowntown

Nordstrom space in Salem Center mall should become a “town square”

The Nordstrom store in downtown Salem is closing on April 6, according to a Statesman Journal story, "Nordstrom to shutter its store in Salem Center mall." A Rapid Response question in the newspaper about what should replace Nordstrom elicited a bunch of diverse answers. Like, another major retailer; a lot of small shops; a bookstore; a new City Hall; a homeless shelter.  None of these ideas made me go WOW! But that's what downtown needs, places that have a Wow Factor. We shouldn't be content with simply replacing Nordstrom with more of the same. This is an opportunity to refashion the…
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Posted inCity of Salem Creekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Larry Tokarski leaves the public with a $7.5 million development bill

It took me about two seconds to say "Yes" when the publisher of Salem Weekly, A.P. Walther, asked me via an email if I'd be interested in writing a story about the unbuilt section of Lone Oak Road that the City Council is asking the public to pay for, after the developer, Larry Tokarski, walked away from his obligation to make the road improvements. The front page story appeared in this week's issue of Salem Weekly. You can read it online. Here's a PDF file of the story as I sent it off to Walther. Download Salem Weekly Lone Oak…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

It’s time to be really scared about Trump

Reading "How Democracies Die" right now is akin to watching a scary movie at home by yourself, then hearing what sounds like footsteps in the kitchen. I'm terrified at what could happen, yet ignoring the danger isn't an option. The authors of How Democracies Die, Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, are Harvard professors who, according to the book jacket,  "have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America."  They consider that our American democracy is in danger -- from President Trump and his willing Republican co-conspirators. I've only finished three chapters of their…
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Posted inDowntown

Thirty great ideas for streetscaping downtown Salem

This afternoon I took part in the Trees and Landscaping Focus Group for the Downtown Streetscape Project. About 20 of us, citizens and consultants, had a spirited 90-minute discussion in the Library's Anderson Room about downtown trees and other vegetation, though the discussion also included broader Streetscape topics. Here's 30 great ideas generated by the Focus Group: (1) Eliminate a lane of traffic on some downtown streets with three or four lanes so there's more room for trees and people on the sidewalks. (2) Define the personality of both downtown and the entire city, then make Streetscape reflect that personality.…
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Posted inCity Council Larry Tokarski

Why did Larry Tokarski start, then stop, construction of Lone Oak Road?

Last Monday the Salem City Council voted 7-2 to form a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District that's supposedly needed to pay for a missing north and south section, plus a bridge over Jory Creek. I talked about this in "City Council poised to make public pay for improvements, not Larry Tokarski." Tokarski is the developer of Creekside, through which the north section of the so-far unbuilt Lone Oak Road would pass. The mystery is why Tokarski never was required to pay for that part of the road, plus the bridge over Jory Creek. He started construction of these improvements in…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Larry Tokarski

City Council poised to make public pay for improvements, not Larry Tokarski

Tonight the Salem City Council is having a public hearing on forming a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District in the Creekside area. Basically, as I understand it, a developer (Garrett and Alice Berndt) has requested that buyers and owners of lots in the area be saddled with a total of $7,347,000 in fees to pay for needed improvements to an extension of Lone Oak Road.  This is a complicated subject, and I don't pretend to be familiar with all of the details surrounding this issue, which has been festering for many years. Arguments have gone back and forth about who…
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Posted inDonald Trump

After one year of Trump, my predictions about him get a C+

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of my January 20, 2017 blog post, "On Trump's first day as president, I predict his next four years." Overall I give myself a C+ grade on the ten predictions, since at this point five seem True, four are equivocal, and one is absolutely False.  Here's what I said Trump would do, along with comments on my soothsaying. While it certainly feels as if those four years should be up by now, in much the same way that a painful root canal seems to take forever, obviously my first prediction merits an Incomplete:(1) There's a…
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Posted inWomen's March

Salem Womxn’s March wrongly criticizes inclusivity of 2017 Women’s March

I wish the organizers of the Salem Womxn's March that will be held on January 21 would stop criticizing the 2017 Salem Women's March for supposedly not being inclusive enough.  This is flat-out wrong.  The speakers at the 2017 event included an African-American woman, her daughter (who sang), and a lesbian woman. Sign language interpreters were on stage for the hearing-impaired. Special seating up front was reserved for those in wheelchairs, or anyone needing those seats.  I filmed the entire march of 4,200 people who filled the streets of downtown Salem. The video is part of this web page I…
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Posted inCarole Smith Downtown

Carole Smith critiques the City of Salem streetscape project

I'm sharing an email message that Carole Smith, a downtown business owner and resident, sent to me recently. She isn't happy with how the City of Salem streetscape project is being conducted, to put it mildly. Well, neither am I, as I wrote about in "Downtown Salem Streetscape project will ignore streets." The whole emphasis is on sidewalks. As shown above, "alleys and roads not part of [project] scope." So they really should have called this a Sidewalkscape project, which is much more limited than a true Streetscape plan -- such as the one proposed for Salem several years ago.  This…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Third Bridge

City of Salem Third Bridge conspiracy theorizing: “Something’s amiss here”

I agree with the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger who said Something's amiss here in a Tuesday post that is more interesting than the title portends, "At the MPO: Work Program and Rule-Making Updates for the TAC." Here's the juicy part of the post. The Technical Advisory Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets today, and there is no important action item.But the agenda does have a couple of other things to note.Work on the formal Work Program continues, and if there is any sign that the remand by LUBA on the land use matters had any real consequences, I'm still…
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Posted inDowntown Salem Main Street Association

Here’s some problems with the Salem Main Street Association

In April 2017 I wrote a blog post called "New Salem Main Street Association debuts with questions and concerns." Nine months later, those questions and concerns remain.  First, it's peculiar that this group remains so secretive, since the kickoff event had some lofty goals: (1) Advocates for downtown Salem businesses, property owners and residents(2) Implements marketing and promotion of downtown Salem (3) Manages funds related to the economic vitality of downtown Salem Yet the Salem Main Street Association still doesn't have a web site, aside from the one above. The small print says, "We're under construction. Please check back for an…
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Posted inOregon politics

Vote Yes on Measure 101. It’s a no-brainer.

Here in Oregon there's only one thing on the January ballot, Measure 101. And it's a no- brainer: VOTE YES I say this after spending an hour today hearing both sides make their best cases for "Yes" and "No" at a Salem City Club meeting. Even though I came in expecting that Yes would have the better arguments, I was surprised how weak the No arguments were. Measure 101 asks Oregonians to decide if $210 to $320 million worth of assessments on insurance companies, some hospitals, the Public Employees Benefit Board, and managed care organizations go into effect, as passed…
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Posted inNational politics

Here’s 5 good reasons not to shop at Salem’s Hobby Lobby

Even if you love Hobby Lobby for its craft supplies, here's some very good reasons not to shop at the Hobby Lobby store that just opened in the Willamette Town Center mall (which used to be called Lancaster Mall).  The biggest reason was given in a Slate podcast interview with Candida Moss, a Professor of Theology who wrote a book about the company's efforts to Christianize this country, "Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby."  After hearing Moss talk about some Hobby Lobby horror stories that I'll summarize below, at about the 21:14 mark Mike Pesca, the interviewer, says…
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Posted inYear in Review

Salem Political Snark’s 2017 year in review: top 12 posts

Hey, if the New York Times can do it, then Salem Political Snark sure can follow in those hallowed journalistic footsteps. So here's our very own Year in Review.  I picked a blog post from each month. This led to some tough choices when several posts caught my eye in the same month. For example, I had to pass on "'Illegal signs are trash.' Which is why they make Salem look trashy." Also, the related "'Jesus Loves Strippers' sign gets Salem hot and bothered." And I would have liked to share "Salem Weekly needs to survive. But how should it change?"Oh...…
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Posted inWomen's March

My open plea to 2018 Salem Womxn’s March organizers

I write for lots of reasons. One is to relieve anxiety. Putting my worries into words somehow makes me feel better. And at the moment, I'm not feeling good about the 2018 Salem Womxn's March, which I've argued should be called a Women's March to build on the amazingly successful 2017 event with that name.  Now, because there is very little public information available about next month's march other than this event notification on the Salem Resists Facebook page, maybe the concerns I'm going to relate below are misfounded. If so, I look forward to Womxn's March organizers setting me…
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Posted inJim Lewis Third Bridge

Third Bridge supporters fantasize about taking control of Salem City Council

I just finished a great book, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." Now, fantasies come in different shades of unbelievability. The Salem Bridge Solutions fantasy reflected in a comment left by one of their leaders, Mike Evans, isn't totally fantastical, but in talking trash about a No 3rd Bridge proclamation of "Our Work is Done," it also isn't highly realistic. A recent post on the Salem Bridge Solutions page points to what I mean. Five positions on the nine-member City Council will be on the May 2018 ballot (whoever gets a majority of votes in the May primary election wins outright,…
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