Posted inPolice facility

Treasurer of pro-police facility PAC accused of bankruptcy fraud

Lovers of irony will adore this news: Carol Russell, the treasurer of a Political Action Committee (PAC) formed to support the City of Salem's $82 million police facility bond measure on the November ballot, was accused of bankruptcy fraud in 2015.  [UPDATE: after writing this post, I asked Banner Bank for the current status of their lawsuit against Russell. I heard back: "Banner Bank voluntarily dismissed defendants Allen J. Russell and Carol A. Russell, on July 7, 2015.  Today, there’s no pending suit."] So reported the Portland Oregonian in "Longtime Coos County cranberry growers accused of filing bankruptcy to avoid…
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Posted inChamber of Commerce

Non-surprise: Salem Chamber of Commerce endorses Republicans

The sun rises in the west. The Salem Chamber of Commerce endorses Republican candidates. Some things can be counted on in this otherwise uncertain world. A Statesman Journal article reports:       The Salem Area Chamber of Commerce is endorsing four local Republicans for election to the state House of Representatives.       The endorsements went to: Rep. Bill Post, seeking re-election in Keizer; opponent: Sharon Freeman (D) Rep. Jodi Hack, seeking re-election in Salem; opponent: Larry Trott (D) Patti Milne, seeking election in Woodburn; opponent: Teresa Alonso Leon (D) Laura Morett, seeking election in Monmouth; opponent: Rep. Paul Evans (D) Not that…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

More Third Bridge outrages revealed at City Council meeting

The biggest story that hardly anybody is aware of here in Salem, Oregon is a billion dollar Third Bridge across the Willamette River. If ever built (and that's a big IF), it would be the largest public works project in Salem history. But our secretive Mayor and her City Council majority are doing their best to keep citizens uninformed and uninvolved, hoping that few people will notice a horrendous waste of taxpayer dollars on a bridge that doesn't solve any transportation problems, but lines the pockets of the Sprawl Lobby -- those who profit from unneeded government spending on boondoggles…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

Salem’s Mayor gets irked at my No 3rd Bridge sign

"Teacher, um, no, I mean MAYOR, don't kick me out of the City Council meeting! It was my pal who put me up to it, REALLY!" I felt like saying this when Mayor Anna Peterson interrupted a staff presentation at tonight's Salem City Council work session on the Salem River Crossing, a.k.a. the Billion Dollar Third Bridge Boondoggle. Check out this one-minute video.   But Peterson was so irked at me peacefully holding the sign that Jim Scheppke had given me, I decided to non-meekly put the sign in my lap rather than incur the Wrath of Anna and risk…
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Posted inPolice facility

Salem, vote “NO” on the $82 million police facility bond measure

Public debate on a controversial Salem police facility is on the starting blocks. Today I saw that the City of Salem has filed Measure 24-399 with Marion County Elections.  So, as expected, this November Salem voters will be asked whether they want to approve $82,088,000 in general obligation bonds to pay for a new 148,000 square foot police headquarters on the old O'Brien auto dealership site just north of downtown. I'm urging a "NO" vote on the bond measure for a simple reason: Salem can do better. There are very good reasons to reject the City of Salem's poorly-thought-out, overpriced, oversized…
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Posted in2016 election National politics

An idealistic ex-flower child has some thoughts for diehard Bernie supporters

Let's bridge a generational gap, Berniacs. Many, if not most, of you are about the age I was in my most revolutionary period: circa 1966 to 1971, my college years at San Jose State (the Berkeley of the South Bay in my decidedly deluded imagination). Here I am, in my 1970 yoga-and-meditation-dude guise. If I look more than a little messianic, that's because I was. I thought I was well on my way to grokking the deepest secrets of the cosmos. Guess what... (as the old saying goes, you've got two guesses, and the first one doesn't count). That didn't…
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Posted inChuck Bennett Police facility

Day 1 of Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett’s “put up or shut up” challenge

Time for some summer fun: I'm challenging Salem Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett (currently a city councilor) to "put up or shut up."  Namely, either put up demonstrable evidence that I and other members of Salem Community Vision have been distorting facts about the $82 million City of Salem police facility proposal that will be voted on via a bond measure this November, or shut up about our supposed false statements.  Today Bennett forced this challenge when he left this comment on a Salem Community Vision Facebook post about Bennett's own statements about the police facility: Unfortunately for the truth of all…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

Salem City Council trying to sneak through billion dollar Third Bridge

Here's some juicy City of Salem gossip I heard today which has a ring of truth -- because it fits with the habitual secretive modus operandi of the Mayor and her right-wing city council majority:  Do the public's business as far outside of public view as possible, because that way it's easier for special interests like the Chamber of Commerce to wield their influence on Salem's local politicians.  What I was told by a usually reliable source is that City officials are hellbent to get local government approvals for the billion dollar Third Bridge boondoggle as far along as possible before January…
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Posted inCity Council Smart growth

Bend sets goals for climate change. Salem’s City Council sits on its butt.

As a long time Salem-area resident, I'm used to having my town's environmental reputation kicked in the ass by more with-it Oregon cities like Eugene, Corvallis, and Portland.  But now also Bend? Geez, Bend is in Deschutes County, central Oregon, which used to be reliably Republican. And hence, not much concerned with supposedly optional niceties such as protecting the livability of our one and only planet Earth.  With a lot of new people moving to Deschutes County, though, the gap between Democratic and Republican voter registration has shrunk considerably in recent years.  So this helps explain why today's Bend Bulletin…
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Posted inNational politics

A plea to Sanders supporters to remember 2000 and vote for Clinton

I'm both an avid Bernie Sanders fan and a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton. If Sanders had won the Democratic presidential nomination, I would have unhesitatingly jumped on board the Bernie Train, hoping that it would lead to the White House. So it's been painful and perplexing for me to peruse my Facebook feed now that Sanders has dropped out of the race and formally endorsed Clinton. I keep seeing posts from Salem-area Berniacs along the lines of "Hillary should have been indicted," "Sanders had the nomination stolen from him," and "Keep the dream alive, vote for Jill Stein." Stein, of…
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Posted inChuck Bennett Citizen involvement

Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett wants to ban “negativity” about Salem

Jokes can have a serious side. So when I heard Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett laughing about the need to pass a law to ban negativity about Salem, I didn't think this was very funny.  Bennett, who currently is the Ward 1 City Councilor, was being interviewed by KYKN talk show hosts Gator Gaynor and Denise Nanke. (She is the wife of Ward 3 City Councilor Brad Nanke.) Someone sent me this audio clip. Naysayers Should Move I've made a transcript of the last part of the interview, which followed a discussion of how absolutely wonderful downtown Salem is. It's pretty clear…
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Posted inSmart growth

Salem only town in Oregon that bans tiny houses

Ah, Salem. I so look forward to the day when the name of my home town isn't regularly mentioned after someone says, "The last town in Oregon to not allow [some cool thing] is..." Tiny houses are an example. Salem bans them. Along with only one other city in the northwest. A 2014 Statesman Journal story said: Tiny houses. Everyone loves them. Cute, inexpensive, and eco-friendly, tiny houses are popping up all over the Northwest. Portland, which just relaxed its permitting rules, is seeing a boom, and even boasts a tiny house hotel. But don’t look for them in Salem.…
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Posted inPolice facility

Great critique of November’s $82 million police facility bond measure

Today the Statesman Journal published an excellent opinion piece by local architect Geoffrey James, "Proposed Salem police facility too large, too expensive." I've shared it below in its entirety, along with the links inserted by newspaper staff, since soon the piece will disappear into the Statesman Journal's archives. I agree with James that the $82 million police facility bond measure on the November ballot likely will fail. I just go one step further and say, "It SHOULD fail."  A few weeks ago I put up a Salem Can Do Better web page that lays out five reasons to vote "No"…
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Posted in2016 election

Democrats a clear majority in Salem

Here's a good analysis of political trends in Salem from my friend and fellow citizen activist Jim Scheppke, who posted this on Facebook. The days when this town was controlled by an overly conservative, keep-things-the-same, special-interest-favoring Mayor and City Council do indeed seem to be numbered. I look forward to the time when Salem becomes progressive in the best sense of this term: creative, forward-looking, and fair-minded, with a commitment to making our city a great place to live for EVERYBODY -- not just a few. "Salem has an undeserved reputation as being a conservative Republican city. Maybe it's because…
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Posted inCity Council Jim Lewis

Salem City Council embarks on investigation into “Sign-Up-Gate” scandal

Oh, man. Last night the Salem City Council passed a motion to investigate me and two other people. Shit! THIS IS F@#KING SERIOUS! So serious, it deserves a scandal-worthy name: Sign-Up Gate. The three of us being investigated, naturally, are The Sign-Up Gate Three.  I've made an annotated photo of myself that can be used by investigators, local media, and the New York Times (once this inquiry goes national, as it deserves to, given its importance). We can credit (if that's the right word) Councilor Jim Lewis with laying bare the details of this scandal (if that also is the right…
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Posted inPolice facility

Salem Can Do Better: Vote “No” on $82 million police facility bond

Tonight the Salem City Council is expected to ask voters to approve an $82 million bond measure to build a new police facility. This is a bad proposal. It deserves to be rejected in the November election. In this web page, made with Adobe Spark, I give five good reasons (plus a bonus reason) why Salem Can Do Better. I'm planning to testify during the public comment period at tonight's City Council meeting. One thing I want to say is that just as someone can be a strong supporter of our armed forces and still be opposed to wasteful military…
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Posted inStatesman Journal

Statesman Journal gets fooled by misleading Republican poll

Shocker! Or so it seemed at the time.  "Poll: Richardson leads Secretary of State race." That link is to a Google cache version of a story that has been taken down by the Salem Statesman Journal.  I read the story online last night. It really surprised me that supposedly Republican Dennis Richardson was leading Democrat Brad Avakian 47% to 38%. A Republican hasn't won a statewide office in Oregon for a long time. And the story by reporter Gordon Friedman said: The numbers suggest the first time in nearly a decade that a Republican has led in polls in a…
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Posted inHumor

“Angry Owl” is on Twitter, saying satirical stuff about Salem

Birds are smart. I'm not surprised that "Angry Owl" has established a nest on Twitter, where he/she tweets out funny observations about Salem. I'm the dumb one, because it's taken me this long to explore Angry Owl's Twitter feed (which hatched in February 2015; tagline is "Protecting the nest, helping joggers run a little faster"). This was the tweet that caught my attention recently. My @oregonbrian Twitter handle was included in it, since Angry Owl knows how much I enjoy humor directed at the City of Salem. (Some of my blog posts also provided material for Angry Owl.) That tweet led…
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Posted inPolice facility Public Safety

Salem can do better… than an over-priced $83 million police facility

The flip side of NO is YES. Saying No to one thing often is the prelude to saying Yes to a better thing. So I'm proud to be a naysayer to plans for an $83 million police facility here in Salem, because rejecting a bond for this over-sized and over-priced Police Palace in the November 2016 election will open a YES door to a better approach -- one that meets the needs of the Police Department plus other needs that currently are being ignored by City officials. Here's what I mean: Cost is too high. Salem can do better... because not…
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Posted inPublic Safety Statesman Journal

Statesman Journal editorial about Orlando killings irritatingly silent on solutions

After so many tragic mass shootings in this country, I've got no patience left with the "thoughts and prayers" crowd -- unless their thoughts and prayers are accompanied by a strong call for action. This is why I found a recent Statesman Journal editorial so irritating. A few years ago I wrote about this in "Why I don't like 'Our thoughts and prayers are with you.'" After the [Boston] bombing I came across a Twitter Tweet by someone I follow, "scriptdave" here in Salem. He's a screenwriter with a great sense of humor. Also, some wise observations. He tweeted: I…
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