Posted inChuck Bennett City Council

Mayor and city staff try to keep Salem from having protected bike lanes

Given how pleasurable and safe it is for all ages to ride a bicycle on protected bike lanes, rather than dangerous white lines painted on the side of busy streets, it was irritating to watch a video of last night's City Council meeting and see Mayor Bennett, along with city staff, do their best to shoot down the popular proposal put forward by Salem Bike Vision.  One way among several to create a protected bike lane Councilor Virginia Stapleton handled the falsehoods with more patience and calm than I would have been capable of. Stapleton is taking the lead in…
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Posted inChuck Bennett

Wife of Salem’s Mayor makes anti-Muslim remarks

Chuck Bennett is the Mayor of Salem, Oregon. Cherie is his wife. Below is a You Tube video of a portion of a video someone sent me of a slide presentation by the Bennetts about their trip to London. One of the slides  In this part of the video Cherie Bennett speaks disparagingly of Muslims after noting the location of London terrorist attacks. I made a transcript of what she said. Given the nature of the terror attacks, it was truly shocking to see huge ads on buses promoting Muslim organizations and issues, calling for support of Muslim charities. "For…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council City of Salem

Mayor Bennett accused of Climate Action Plan shenanigans

It's rare that I get to use "shenanigans," since that's an old-fashioned word. But it came to mind when I read what Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett is being accused of by our local 350.org affiliate, 350 Salem OR. As you can read below, it does seem like Mayor Bennett is engaged in a devious, underhanded trick -- trying to undermine the Salem Climate Action Plan so NW Natural can continue polluting the atmosphere with dangerous greenhouse gases. I've got more to say after the 350 Salem OR news release. -------------------------------------------------- January 26, 2022FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   Contact: Phil Carver, Co-Coordinator (503) 562-9878…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Police reform

Unwise: Salem Mayor wants 60 more police officers

Of all the things that Salem needs, 60 more police officers should be way down on the priority list. But I've been told that this is what Mayor Chuck Bennett is calling for, apparently during a recent City Council work session about the 2022 Policy Agenda. Adding 60 officers to the force is a big deal that needs to be justified with extremely solid data and reasoning, not just because the Mayor or Chief Womack likes the idea.  Here's a thoughtful analysis of this seemingly unwise notion that someone sent to me. I would like to suggest that you snark…
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Posted in2022 election Chuck Bennett City Council

2022 Salem City Council and Mayor races get interesting

Even though we're still six months away from the May 2022 election that typically decides City Council and Mayor races (50 percent + 1 vote and you win outright, even though the election is a "primary"), things are already getting really interesting.  The Statesman Journal has a story that describes the current state of affairs: "Salem City Council set for a shake-up in 2022. Here's who's in and who's out so far." Tom Andersen, the Ward 2 city councilor, isn't running for re-election. He was the first progressive elected to the City Council and serves as the unofficial leader of…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City of Salem Salem Police Department

Proud Boys return to Salem, threatening reporters again

Well, that didn't take long. Just six days after the Salem Police Department did absolutely nothing to prevent the Proud Boys extremist militia group from threatening a journalist and other citizens observing a gun rally in a public park, today a couple of Proud Boys banned media from taking photos or video in front of a public building in downtown Salem. And why wouldn't they? The Salem Police Department and other city officials have coddled the Proud Boys, seemingly because they're afraid of these armed right-wingers. The Proud Boys now know that Salem is a place these white supremacists are…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Jackie Leung

Controversy erupts over Leung missing out on City Council committees

Mayor Bennett's initial decision to assign Councilor Jackie Leung to only one Salem City Council committee (as an alternate, moreover) struck many people as a big deal about something, whereas I've come to see it as much ado about almost nothing. Jackie Leung I learned about what I'm tempted to call CommitteeGate (just gave in to that temptation) after reading several Facebook posts about this on a private progressive Facebook group. Some city councilors got as many as five, six, or seven committee assignments. My first reaction was that it did seem strange that Leung got such little committee love…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Coronavirus

There’s shameful silence in Salem about COVID-19

Ever since the pandemic reached Salem last spring, there's been little communication from Mayor Bennett, City Manager Powers, the three Marion County commissioners, and other elected officials (such as the eight city councilors) about the need to follow Governor Brown's public health orders. Yes, some City of Salem press releases have been issued. Yes, city councilors have used Facebook to urge physical distancing, mask wearing, and such. However, this mainly happened early this year. So by and large -- and especially now, when daily COVID cases and deaths have reached new highs in Oregon -- the silence from our local…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council City of Salem

Salem’s city officials need to WAKE UP about COVID-19 danger

I'll be blunt and red flag colorful. People are going to die if Salem's Mayor, City Manager, and City Councilors don't freaking WAKE UP about the danger COVID-19 poses to everybody in our city, but especially to those who are over 60 and those with underlying medical conditions. With St. Patrick's Day coming up, those city officials need to be screaming from the rooftops of social media, Statesman Journal, Salem Reporter, local radio stations, and Portland TV stations that Salem residents need to stay out of bars, restaurants, and other crowded gathering places until the COVID-19 outbreak has stabilized. Which will…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Downtown

Salem’s proposed sit-lie ordinance rests on a bunch of “can’ts”

Tomorrow there's a good chance the Salem City Council will approve a citywide sit-lie ordinance that prohibits sitting and lying on public sidewalks between the hours of 7 am to 9 pm, subject to certain exceptions.  Aimed at homeless people, obviously, this is the most recent attempt to pass a sit-lie ordinance, which so far has failed to get a majority vote from the City Council. Mayor Chuck Bennett Mayor Bennett really wants to have it passed this time, as a recent Salem Reporter story made clear. Here's an excerpt from "Salem Mayor pushes for 'sit-lie' in the face of…
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Posted inCara Kaser Chuck Bennett Jim Lewis

Third Bridge talked about in three acts last night

Driving home from the West Salem Neighborhood Association meeting last night, I pondered the weirdly wonderful discussion of how the City Council killed the Third Bridge on February 11, and what to do next about downtown-area traffic congestion. Troy Brynelson of the Salem Reporter wrote a good story about the meeting, "After splitting on third bridge, councilors seek common ground in West Salem." Excerpt: Salem City Councilors Cara Kaser and Jim Lewis bridged some political differences Monday night, pledging to work together to solve the city’s congestion woes after staking opposing views last week about the Salem River Crossing. The…
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Posted inCara Kaser Chuck Bennett Jim Lewis

Time for Chuck Bennett and Jim Lewis to do some bridge building

Let's be clear: By "bridge building" I don't mean constructing a Third Bridge in Salem across the Willamette River. That project died last Monday night when the City Council voted 6-3 to kill it.  What I'm talking about in the title of this blog post is what happens next in Salem. Ideally, those fervently in favor of the now-defunct Salem River Crossing project and those fervently opposed to it will come together to work on ways to reduce rush hour congestion in the downtown area that don't involve spending upwards of half a billion dollars on another bridge.  This effort…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Third Bridge

City of Salem staff and Mayor Bennett are spinning Third Bridge facts

It's unfortunate that in advance of next Wednesday's City Council work session on the Salem River Crossing project, a.k.a. the Third Bridge, councilors and the public are being fed a bunch of pseudo-facts that run the gamut from clearly false to questionable. As noted in a recent post of mine, even though in recent years the Salem City Council has shifted from being dominated by conservatives to a 6-3 progressive majority, the unpaid volunteer councilors and mayor are dependent on City of Salem staff -- which includes employees who have been working on the Salem River Crossing for a long…
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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 inChuck Bennett Gator Gaynor

Gator & Denise hate radio show mocks Florida shooting survivors

Hate radio is despicable wherever it comes from. And when its being broadcast from right here in Salem, there's even more reason to condemn it.  Gator Gaynor and Denise Nanke (wife of city councilor Brad Nanke) took to the KYKN airwaves on Tuesday to mock the Parkland, Florida high school students who survived the massacre that claimed the lives of 14 classmates and three adults. How sick is that? Really sick.  I learned about this latest episode of the hate radio series that goes by the name of the Gator & Denise show via a Facebook post put up by…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Third Bridge

Ding, dong, the Third Bridge is dead

And so it came to pass that there was cause for much rejoicing at last night's City Council meeting, for the Wicked Third Bridge (of both East and West, since it would have connected these two sides of Salem) almost certainly was put to death. Not by having a house dropped on it, or by being splashed with water, which would indeed be a perplexing way for a bridge to die, but by the City Council approving a motion to establish a committee that will examine ways to reduce traffic congestion around the two existing bridges without building a new…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Tom Andersen

Salem moves closer to a Climate Action Plan

Because the Trump administration has a head-in-the-sand approach to global warming, cities like Salem have to help fill the federal void when it comes to the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Otherwise, devastating wildfires, persistent drought, supersized hurricanes, massive flooding, and other manifestations of human-caused climate change are going to keep on worsening.  Fortunately, today I learned that Salem is making good progress on having a citywide Climate Action Plan -- thanks to the efforts of our local 350.org chapter, 350 Salem OR, and supportive city councilors such as Tom Andersen, Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, Chris Hoy, and…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City of Salem

I won the Tree City USA photo contest! Mayor Bennett won’t like my acceptance speech.

Woo-hoo! My poignant photo of a citizen's flower memorial placed on a stump belonging to one of the U.S. Bank trees that were needlessly cut down in 2013 won the City of Salem's Tree City USA photo contest. Well, let's say that I'm virtually sure that I won, given the announcement on a rather obscure Facebook page belonging to the City, City of Salem Public Works Water.  Since my photo was the largest, and my name was mentioned first, I'll accept a win on behalf of the five beautiful Japanese Zelkovas that were killed for no good reason by clueless…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City of Salem Third Bridge

Mayor Bennett doubles down on false claim of no 3rd Bridge tolling

Mayor Bennett is going backwards, truth-telling-wise, on the City of Salem's false contention that there is no plan to toll any of Salem's bridges. Friday I blogged about the original falsity in "'Alternative Facts' in City of Salem Facebook post about 3rd Bridge tolls."  Regarding the post on the official City of Salem Facebook page, I said: I was deeply irritated after reading it, and not just because I'm strongly opposed to building an unneeded half-billion dollar 3rd Bridge, a.k.a. the Salem River Crossing (which would cost around a billion dollars once financing is included). What bugged me the most was…
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Posted inChuck Bennett Third Bridge

Mayor Bennett is wrong: Third Bridge plan can’t be changed easily

Words matter. The truth matters. It really bothers me when an elected official -- whether President-elect Trump, Salem Mayor Bennett, or anyone else -- says stuff in a public forum that is flat-out false.  Chuck Bennett has been doing that in regard to the Third Bridge. Fortunately, knowledgeable people are correcting his misstatements. I did that yesterday in "Mayor Bennett either deceptive or wrong about Third Bridge planning." I did that three months ago in "Mayor-elect Bennett doesn't understand Third Bridge approval process." And I'm doing that tonight in this post. Because again... Words matter. The truth matters.  As I…
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