Posted inCity Council Third Bridge Tom Andersen

Killing the Third Bridge was a wise move

Anyone who doubts that the City Council did the right thing by killing the Third Bridge on a 6-3 vote last night should spend 10 minutes and watch Councilor Tom Andersen's eloquent explanation of why the Salem River Crossing project deserved to die. This video starts (hopefully) at the beginning of Andersen's remarks. He points out that the official bridge reports show that a Third Bridge wouldn't reduce congestion, would be environmentally unsound, would displace many homes and businesses, likely wouldn't stand up in a major earthquake, would require tolling on both the current bridges and new bridge, and would…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

The dirt on the missing Third Bridge dirt

If City Councilors want more reasons to vote NO at their meeting tonight on whether to keep the Salem River Crossing (Third Bridge) project alive, here's disturbing information on missing dirt from the area where the west bridgehead would be located.This morning I received this "dirt on the missing dirt" from a trusted source, who said: ----------------------------------------------- Here is documentation that the Salem River Crossing project management team is misleading the Salem City Council by withholding and misrepresenting information about the costs of the bridge and seismic safety.     What is the foundation of all bridge planning?  The ground…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Third Bridge

“Post-mortem” inquiry called for after Third Bridge dies

Obviously we can't be certain that the Salem River Crossing (or Third Bridge) project will die a well-deserved death tomorrow at the February 11 City Council meeting.  But since the six progressives on the nine-member Council all were elected after promising to fight what I like to call the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, smart money would bet on this draft letter being sent by the Mayor to the Federal Highway Administration and Oregon Department of Transportation on Tuesday.Download No Further Action PDF (City of Salem staff have another draft letter ready to go if, against all odds, the City Council were…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

Salem River Crossing project about to get a well-deserved death

Last night the City Council held a work session on the Salem River Crossing project, often termed the Third Bridge. Or, the Billion Dollar Boondoggle. I watched some of the work session via a Facebook feed. My impression of what transpired fits with the headline of a Statesman Journal story, "Salem third bridge: City Council shows few signs of advancing proposal as deadline nears." And why would the nine councilors show a sign that suddenly they were all in on this project?  Each of the six progressives on the City Council was elected after making a campaign promise to oppose…
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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 inCity Council City of Salem Land use

Heritage School needs to be treated fairly by the City of Salem

I like David and Goliath stories. I always root for David, the little guy or gal. That's why I'm hoping Salem's small 35-student Heritage School gets treated fairly by City officials and the City Council regarding its concerns about what the large, rich, and powerful Mountain West Investment Corporation wants to build adjacent to the school. A Statesman Journal story mostly misses the point about why the Heritage School wants to see changes made to a Mountain West proposal to build a 180-unit apartment complex next to the school.  The story, "Salem's Fairview Training Center was intended as a green…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Land use

City may buy Hillcrest after Mark Wigg proposed this. West Salem Loop is another Wigg idea.

This is a great example of bottom-up creativity here in Salem. As far as I know, the City of Salem had no intention of buying the 45-acre property that formerly housed the Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility until Salem activist Mark Wigg proposed this, and I shared Wigg's ideas in a September 2018 blog post that went to City officials: "Hillcrest is for sale. The City of Salem should buy it." Here's how my post started out. The State of Oregon has put the 45 acre Hillcrest property up for sale. According to Wikipedia, Hillcrest was a youth correctional facility that…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Steve Powers

Progressives rule City Council, but City of Salem has “deep state” problem

I'm not a fan of the whole deep state thing when Trump supporters use the term to denigrate career federal employees who are simply trying to do their job as best they can.  But rightly or wrongly, deep state has become a sort of shorthand for government officials hanging on to past policy positions after the political winds of change have begun blowing in a different direction. So that's how I'm using the term. After quite a few years of progressives being outnumbered by conservatives on the Salem City Council, they now enjoy a 6-3 majority. Tom Andersen, Cara Kaser, Sally…
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Posted inCity Council

Wow! City Council rejects approval of Costco plan

I'm shocked. And pleasantly surprised. After hours of impassioned testimony, most of it against relocating a giant Costco big box store to property adjacent to residential neighborhoods in south Salem, the City Council just voted to reject the staff approval of the Kuebler Gateway Shopping Center. The vote was 5-3, with Mayor Bennett and Councilors Lewis and Nanke voting against Councilor McCoid's motion to reject the staff OK of the plan for the shopping center. Councilors Andersen, Hoy, McCoid, Cook, and Ausec voted in favor of the motion. Congratulations to the neighbors who testified eloquently about the problems Costco and…
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Posted inCara Kaser City Council Third Bridge

Third Bridge closer to death after tonight’s City Council meeting

Observing via CCTV the Salem City Council debate tonight whether to move ahead with the Salem River Crossing, or Third Bridge, felt like I was watching a movie where you know the bad guy is going to be killed at some point, but you know that isn't going to happen until a lot of drama and close calls have built up the suspense. Like I said yesterday in "Jim Lewis dreams the impossible Third Bridge dream," it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Lewis' motion to have City staff respond to issues raised in a legal setback that remanded…
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Posted inCity Council Jim Lewis Third Bridge

Jim Lewis dreams the impossible Third Bridge dream

Ah, so cute! I find it adorable how some people -- in this case, a Salem City Councilor, Jim Lewis -- imagine that they can do something that seems impossible.  Like, fly by flapping their arms. Or make their cat do tricks. Or... get the City Council to vote in favor of moving ahead with a Third Bridge, a.k.a. the Salem River Crossing, at a council meeting tomorrow (Monday, November 26). Lewis was narrowly re-elected last May as the city councilor for Ward 8 in West Salem. He ran a sleazy campaign, wrongly claiming that his opponent, Micki Varney, wanted…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

City of Salem Community Report has pluses and minuses

First off, it's great that City officials have released a 2018 report on how the City of Salem is making progress on goals in the recently adopted Strategic Plan. Download 2018-annual-community-report The report is nicely designed, attractive and clear. It's easy to read. And it reassures citizens that the folks at City Hall have some clear direction in regards to how Salem needs to change for the better. I've only given the report a quick read, but wanted to share my first impressions of the 2018 Annual Community Report. The high-level goals in the Strategic Plan strike me as pleasantly vacuous.…
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Posted inChamber of Commerce City Council National politics

If all politics is national now, what about local Salem politics?

Baby boomer that I am, I'm old enough to remember when what Yascha Mounk writes about in a New Yorker piece, "The Rise of McPolitics," was the lay of the political land in this country: For much of the twentieth century, the real power in American politics rested not with U.S. representatives or senators but with the governors, mayors, and assemblymen who controlled local purse strings. In many cases, men like Chafin got people elected to Congress in order to reward them for years of loyal service or to rid themselves of ambitious rivals, but national politics was of comparatively…
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Posted inCity Council

Conservative City Council hearts all aflutter about taking a stand on ballot measures

Oh, my, the very thought of viewing the Salem City Council as, gasp, political, seemed to make the three remaining conservative councilors dab their feverish brows with tidy white handkerchiefs, given the shock to their delicate psyches that Tom Andersen and other progressive councilors wanted to take a stand against Measure 105, which would repeal Oregon's sanctuary state law. Not having watched last night's council meeting, I base my hearts all aflutter conclusion on a Statesman Journal story, "Tensions flare as Salem City Council takes stand on sanctuary state ballot measure." Salem city councilors voted 6-3 to oppose a November ballot measure…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Gator Gaynor

Will Alex Jones follow Gator & Denise into Salem talk show oblivion?

Salem is a liberal-leaning city. But local radio stations, with the notable exception of KMUZ, tend to tilt decidedly rightward. KSLM and KYKN seem determined to compete on who can air the most conservative craziness, as I blogged about last April in "KSLM is trying to out-right-wing-wacko KYKN." A show featuring two local conservative commentators, Gator Gaynor and Denise Nanke (wife of Salem City Councilor Brad Nanke) has disappeared from the KYKN lineup. I emailed KYKN management, asking why this happened, but never got a response. It could have had something to do with Gaynor and Nanke mocking the Parkland,…
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Posted inChamber of Commerce City Council Land use

Poetic goodbye to Old Lindbeck Orchard shows what’s wrong with Salem development

I'm sharing a moving opinion piece by Jane Wille in today's Statesman Journal because we need more poetic feeling and less financial greed here in Salem. As you'll read below, Wille is saddened by the loss of the Old Lindbeck Orchard property in West Salem, which she says is to become high-density retirement housing. Last year the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger reported that it looked like a fenced gated community apartment complex was planned for the property. This supposedly is progress. I'm not so sure. After Wille's piece, you can read the comment I left on the Statesman Journal…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Police facility

How did the Salem police facility cost balloon 36% in just 18 months?

Last night the Salem City Council, meeting as the Urban Renewal Agency board, failed to ask the right questions about a massive cost overrun on the not-yet-built new police facility. This failure was across the board. Council progressives didn't ask the right questions. Neither did the council conservatives. The Mayor didn't ask the right questions. And City of Salem staff sure didn't either. So I'm going to present some key questions that went unasked.  What bothered me the most about the approval of $2 million in urban renewal funds to fill a hole in the police facility budget wasn't so…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Donald Trump

Salem progressives: Depressing national news should fire us up for local changes

Nationally, it's been a depressing week for progressives like me. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse with 5-4 Supreme Court decisions that ratified Trump's travel ban, gave a green light to gerrymandering, and trashed public employee unions, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement today.  That gives Trump another crack at appointing a highly conservative justice who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, thereby allowing states to make abortion illegal. Which surely would happen in many red states. Also, a compliant Supreme Court could refuse to put any check on Trump's authoritarian desires, making the United States a…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Land use

Costco hopes to come to south Salem over neighborhood opposition

It's an all-too-familiar theme here in Salem: people feeling powerless about unwelcome development in their neighborhood that they feel is being pushed upon them by forces they can't control. Before sharing photos of what's planned for the new shopping center where Costco will be the dominant presence, I wanted to show the most surprising aspect of the meeting. Empty chairs. This reflects the failure of Costco Wholesale and PacTrust real estate representatives to have the guts to stand up in front of concerned neighbors and answer their questions about why it makes sense to plunk a gigantic big box store…
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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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