Posted inChuck Bennett Third Bridge

Mayor Bennett either ignorant or deceptive about Third Bridge planning

Last Monday's Salem City Council meeting was a poor start for newly-elected Mayor Chuck Bennett. After Councilor Tom Andersen asked some good questions of City staff about how the design of the proposed Salem River Crossing (a.k.a. the Billion Dollar Boondoggle) could affect a West Salem agenda item, Bennett spoke up, telling Andersen that there wasn't a design for the bridge.  Which is wrong. Of course there is. Mayor Bennett didn't speak the truth. Have a look:  Here's what the No 3rd Bridge folks said in a Facebook post about Bennett's falsehood. MAYOR BENNETT PRACTICES "POST-TRUTH POLITICS"Hey it worked for…
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Posted inCara Kaser Chuck Bennett City Council

Swearing-in of three new Salem city councilors notable for what wasn’t said

Tonight there was a packed house in the City Council chambers for the swearing-in of newly elected Mayor Chuck Bennett and four city councilors: Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, Matt Ausec, and Brad Nanke.  Bennett and Nanke were already on the City Council (Bennett moved to Mayor from his Ward 1 seat now held by Kaser). So the big turnout mostly was due to progressives wanting to celebrate the election of Kaser, Cook, and Ausec.  The three of them join fellow progressive Tom Andersen to form a much-needed counterweight to the conservative majority that has dominated the City Council for quite…
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Posted inChuck Bennett T.J. Sullivan Urban Renewal

Salem Business Journal publishes my urban renewal “crony capitalism” story

"If you can write an Urban Renewal story by tomorrow noon, I will run it in the January Business Journal." This was the good news part of a reply I received from Bruce Taylor, publisher of the Salem Business Journal, after asking him via email if he was interested in a story about problems with the City of Salem's urban renewal agency.  I was pleased to get Bruce's positive response. The bad news part was, I read his message about five hours after he sent it, having been totally absorbed until about 8:30 pm in watching the mesmerizing men's basketball…
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Posted inChuck Bennett Third Bridge

Mayor-elect Bennett doesn’t understand Third Bridge approval process

It's a big deal when Salem's Mayor-To-Be appears to be clueless about what needs to happen before a plan for the proposed $430 million Third Bridge across the Willamette can be approved by the Federal Highway Administration. Chuck Bennett takes office in January 2017. Hopefully he will educate himself in the next few months about the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and what is required before a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement can be given a thumbs-up by the Federal Highway Administration. Today the No 3rd Bridge folks put up a post called "The Mayor-elect does not understand the NEPA process."…
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Posted inChuck Bennett Police facility

Mayor-elect Bennett provides good reasons to vote NO on police facility bond

Thank you, Mayor-elect and current City Councilor Chuck Bennett. You may have thought that you were stating some reasons to vote "yes" on Measure 24-399, the $82 million police facility bond measure on Salem's November ballot, but actually you made a great pitch for a NO vote. On August 24 Chuck Bennett appeared on a KYKN talk show hosted by Gator Gaynor and Denise Nanke. Here's a 2-minute audio clip from the show where Bennett talks about the bond measure.  https://soundcloud.com/user9482943/bennett-on-gator-8-24-16 Those of us who are opposed to the wasteful, poorly-thought-out police facility plan (check out the Salem Can Do…
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Posted inChuck Bennett Creekside Golf Course Political donations

Follow the money: Creekside Golf Course “IrriGate” scandal

In Salem these days, as elsewhere in the U.S., corporate fat cats don't have to carry around bags of cash to surreptitiously hand over to compliant politicians when they want a favor done for them.  No, our campaign finance systems have gotten so screwed up, rich political donors can do their "bought and paid for" thing right out in the open, pretty much. Their money buys access to politicians, greasing the skids for favorable votes that can't be directly connected to the cash they donated to a campaign fund. Case in point: Salem's Creekside Golf Course water rate reduction brouhaha.…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Creekside Golf Course

Crony capitalism on display in Creekside Golf Course water rate giveaway

There's so much wrong with the City of Salem's planned $600,000 reduction in water costs for all high-volume irrigators -- a roundabout way of saving the Creekside Golf Course $60,000 a year -- that it almost has a delicious rightness to it.  Meaning, hopefully this travesty-in-the-making will wake up Salem's citizenry to what has been obvious to those who closely watch goings-on at City Hall. Crony capitalism is alive and well in Salem, but it should be dead and gone. Here's how Wikipedia describes it: Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on…
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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 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 inCarole Smith Chuck Bennett

Smith and Bennett letters to editor have “ships passing in night” feel

Both candidates in the recent race for Salem Mayor -- winner Chuck Bennett and loser Carole Smith -- had letters in the Statesman Journal this week, a day apart. Not too much should be made of them. But also, not too little. So I'll try to strike a middle ground in my profoundly wise Salem Political Snark analysis of what the letters mean for this town.  Serious, yet not too serious.  My basic reaction is that the letters from Smith and Bennett had sort of a "ships that pass in the night" feel to them. Given that the mayoral candidates ran…
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Posted inCarole Smith Chuck Bennett Statesman Journal

Statesman Journal is source of a lie a SJ editorial railed against. So sweet!

This is SO beautiful for a snarky blogger such as moi: discovering that the source of a Big Political Lie railed against in several Statesman Journal stories came from... (drum roll, please) A story in the freaking Statesman Journal itself! This fills me with so much pleasure, because there's nothing I enjoy more -- well, actually this isn't true, but let's pretend it is -- than criticizing our town's pitiful excuse for a community newspaper. So if you sense joy oozing from the words you're reading, you're correct! If you followed goings-on in the recent race for Salem Mayor between…
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Posted inCara Kaser Carole Smith Chuck Bennett

Progressive candidates win Salem City Council races. The Oligarchy weeps.

"The oligarchy is dead," a friend said to me tonight at Shotski's Woodfired Pizza as we applauded Sally Cook's decisive Ward 7 victory over current City Councilor Warren Bednarz -- who was endorsed by the Salem Chamber of Commerce and other special interests.  The Marion County Democrats put on a Primary Election Night party. Even though the races for Salem Mayor and four City Council seats are nominally non-partisan, everyone knew that the battle for the contested seats was between the Progressives and the Establishment, a.k.a. the Oligarchy. With most of the votes in, it looks like the Oligarchy lost…
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Posted inChuck Bennett

Chuck Bennett complains about legal, truthful satirical mailer about him

Salem Mayor candidate Chuck Bennett is notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to criticism. He calls people who disagree with him "trolls," while his opponent, Carole Smith, says "Listen to your town nuts."  I made a 40 second video that shows how differently Bennett and Smith talked about citizen participation in their Salem Weekly endorsement interviews. (The Salem Weekly editorial board ended up endorsing Smith.)   Now Bennett is complaining about an anonymous mailer that's been received by Salem voters. I'm not sure why this deserved a story in the Statesman Journal, given that the mailer is (1) completely legal, and…
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Posted inCarole Smith Chuck Bennett

Mayor candidate Chuck Bennett is saying stuff that isn’t true

With the May 17 election for Salem Mayor and four City Council seats coming up in about ten days -- VOTE! It's so easy with vote by mail -- the campaigning is hot and heavy.  Well, with Mayor candidate Chuck Bennett let's make that hot, heavy, and seemingly untruthful. I've gotten reports that Bennett has been saying things that are factually challenged (a polite way of putting it). Like... (1) Telling people that the 2008 Streets and Bridges bonds will be paid off soon. Reportedly Bennett said this in an attempt to put a positive spin on an $80 million…
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Posted inCarole Smith Chamber of Commerce Chuck Bennett

Chuck Bennett gets lots of love (and money) from homebuilder PACs

Love may be ineffable when it comes to personal relationships. But love is quantifiable when we're talking about political campaign contributions.   Individuals and organizations give the most money to candidates they love the most. So even though browsing through records of political campaign contributions isn't all that fun, tonight I kind of enjoyed exploring the love-fest between Salem Mayor candidate Chuck Bennett and several homebuilder PACs (Political Action Committees). I also looked into Carole Smith's campaign finances, but this wasn't nearly as interesting. A brief discussion of Smith's contributions follows my report on Bennett's. ORESTAR is where the Oregon…
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Posted inChuck Bennett

Chuck Bennett lobbied for a copper mine in the Opal Creek forest

Today, Chuck Bennett is running to be Mayor of Salem. About twenty years ago, he was a lobbyist for a company that wanted to mine copper, gold, and silver on 32 acres in what is now the Opal Creek Wilderness Area.  click to enlarge In 1991 Bennett was called the "public relations counsel" for Plexus, Inc., which referred to the mine as the Bornite Project (bornite is the name of the copper-rich ore discovered at the site). Plexus and two other companies merged in 1993, becoming Kinross Gold. After that, newspaper stories about the Opal Creek mining project refer to Chuck…
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Posted inCarole Smith Chuck Bennett

Mayor candidates Smith and Bennett duke it out before SJ editorial board

Well, regarding the title of this post, "duke it out" was more of my wish for what would happen when Carole Smith and Chuck Bennett met jointly with the Statesman Journal editorial board, seeking the newspaper's endorsement. After watching half of the hour-long video of the session, I came away wanting more candidate-to-candidate interaction, rather than what actually happened -- Smith and Bennett separately answering questions posed by editorial page editor Dick Hughes. As I noted in "Contrast between Smith and Bennett evident at Salem City Club Mayoral debate," there are major differences between the candidates. But this isn't as clear,…
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Posted inAnna Peterson Carole Smith Chuck Bennett

True Story revealed of Carole Smith’s feud with Mayor Anna Peterson

A lot of malicious political gossip gets spread around supposedly-friendly Salem. Here at Salem Political Snark, we're out to separate false accusations from true facts. This time, the accusation is that Mayor candidate Carole Smith promoted divisive, unproductive conflict while on the Downtown Advisory Board. Like Fox News likes to say -- and I'm barely capable of typing these words, given the source -- "We Report, You Decide." Brent DeHart is a recent past president of the Salem Chamber of Commerce. Smith's opponent, Chuck Bennett, has been endorsed by the Chamber. Here's DeHart's letter to the editor that appeared in the…
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Posted inChuck Bennett Public Safety

Chuck Bennett’s WTF! moments at City Club Mayoral debate

When I watch politicians debate, almost always I experience some WTF! moments where that's bullshit flashes into my mind.  Last Friday's Salem City Club debate between the Mayoral candidates in the May 17 election, Carole Smith and Chuck Bennett, was no exception.  (My first non-WTF debate post was "Contrast between Smith and Bennett evident at Salem City Club Mayoral debate.")   There were two subjects Bennett talked about that elicited a WTF! reaction from me: (1) a proposed multi-use bike path in West Salem, Salemtowne to Downtown, and (2) making the Library and City Hall earthquake-safe. Nothing Smith said seemed…
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Posted inChuck Bennett

Chuck Bennett’s shameful role in U.S. Bank tree killings

Chuck Bennett is running for Mayor of Salem. I'm sharing an email about Bennett that voters should read before they choose between him and Carole Smith, the other candidate for Mayor.  The email shows that Chuck Bennett was complicit in a shameful moment -- the needless killing in 2013 of the five large, beautiful, healthy Japanese Zelkova trees on downtown's State Street. At the time, as now, Bennett represented Ward 1, which includes the Historic District. Yet Bennett not only did nothing to save the U.S. Bank trees from being cut down for no good reason, he actively participated in…
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