Last Monday I attended a fundraiser for Jackie Leung at the south Salem McMenamins. She's running for the Ward 4 City Council seat currently held by Steve McCoid. My beer was pleasingly cool, and Leung was wonderfully warm as she discussed issues facing Salem with the politically engaged attendees. I'd met Leung before, but I hadn't heard her talk at length about her views on tough problems. She impressed me. A lot. Leung is thoughtful, informed, and an excellent listener. The latter quality is particularly important for a city councilor, since the (unpaid) job requires attending to people who appear…
Last night the City Council decided to take another month to consider its reconsideration of a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District that appears to have support mainly from the developers who would pocket money supplied by lot owners in south Salem.
A hearing was supposed to clear up questions about the Reimbursement District, but it seemed that as many questions were raised as answered. So after lengthy discussion, Mayor Chuck Bennett moved to hold open the hearing until the April 23 City Council meeting. That motion was passed unanimously by nine rather confused councilors.
In case you've missed the twists and turns of this issue — and if you only read the Statesman Journal, you've missed out completely, because our local newspaper no longer covers most local news, including news about the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District — here's my blog posts about this subject, listed from oldest to newest..
The hearing last night featured quite a few complaints from people who would have to pay thousands of dollars to the Reimbursement District when a house was built on their lot, even if they'd rarely, if ever, use an extension of Lone Oak Road.
They questioned why owners of lots quite far from Lone Oak Road would have to pay up, while current residents of the Creekside neighborhood wouldn't have to pay anything.
In my three-minute testimony, I argued that there didn't appear to be a need for a Reimbursement District. You can either listen to what I said via the You Tube video below, or read my remarks in a continuation to this post.
Several city councilors said they'd be submitting questions to City staff that they'd like answers to when the Reimbursement District is discussed again at the April 23 City Council meeting.
Here's a key question that I hope gets asked and answered: Is the Creekside developer required to build a bridge over Jory Creek and an extension of Lone Oak Road, or is constructing these improvements the responsibility of the City of Salem?
I recall that City staff said last night that if the Creekside developer plats Phase 14, the bridge and road would have to be built as a condition of moving ahead with the development of that phase. However, the staff report for the Reimbursement District reconsideration hearing only speaks of the Creekside developer being required to construct Lone Oak Road.
The Creekside developer is required to construct Lone Oak Road between Muirfield Avenue and Augusta Drive as a condition of the next sub-phase of Creekside’s Phase 14 development. However, the timing of construction is at the developer’s discretion, not the City’s. Therefore, this condition to construct Lone Oak Road is also being imposed on other developments in the area since the street is needed to serve these other properties.
There also was considerable talk about a 2015 Memorandum of Understanding that called for the City of Salem to build the bridge and possibly also the road (the MOU language isn't crystal clear on this point), with the Creekside developer seemingly only being responsible for dedicating the right of way for the northern extension of Lone Oak Road. Download Attachment 7 – Creekside MOU 052715
The MOU calls for the City of Salem to include $750,000 in the Capital Improvement Plan for FY 2016 through 2020 to build the bridge. But the plan for the Reimbursement District assumes that the bridge will cost $5,6 million. So there's close to a $5 million discrepancy between what City officials thought the Jory Creek crossing would cost in 2015, and what it now is estimated to cost,
This is a major screw-up which was cause for concern at previous City Council hearings. Last night it was learned who was responsible for the $5 million mistake: Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director. He said that he failed to get a cost estimate from the City engineering staff, choosing instead to rely on a cost estimate by the Creekside developer.
Here's a video I made of Fernandez' admission that he was the one who screwed-up.
This $5 million mistake by Fernandez is important for reasons beyond the high dollar figure. Here's why:
(1) Peter Fernandez had numerous opportunities to come clean about why the cost of the Jory Creek crossing mushroomed from less than a million dollars to almost six million dollars. But he only revealed his failure to get a cost estimate from his engineers under close questioning from Councilor Tom Andersen last night. This calls into question Fernandez' credibility on other issues, and is a valid reason to wonder why he should continue to serve as Public Works Director.
(2) It was acknowledged yesterday that given the $5.6 million cost of a bridge over Jory Creek, there is little likelihood that the Creekside developer will ever choose to build the bridge. So this eliminates a major rationale for the Reimbursement District, which already obviously is on shaky ground given the fact that after approving it, the City Council voted to reconsider that decision, and now has decided to spend a month considering the reconsideration before the April 23 Council meeting.
(3) To elaborate on the above, it makes little sense for the City of Salem to include money to build the bridge in a future Streets & Bridges bond measure, then pay back some of that money via funds raised through the Reimbursement District. If this happened, money provided by all property tax payers in Salem would be reimbursed by assessments placed on several hundred lots in the south Salem area that are part of the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District. Those lot owners would be justifiably irked by this.
(4) Their irritation would be justified for several reasons, one of them being that City staff said that the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District is by far the largest district of that kind in Salem. In other words, and as already noted, lot owners who are far away from Lone Oak Road are being asked to pay for bridge/road improvements. The fact that the City of Salem would be the entity being reimbursed by those lot owners for bridge construction makes the Reimbursement District even more unfair.
Another nail in the coffin of the Reimbursement District is the fact noted by City staff last night that two subdivisions planned for the area south of Sahalee Drive include about 120 lots (outlined in purple and orange above). The developers of these subdivisions (one 10 acres, the other 20 acres) are responsible for building the southern extension of Lone Oak Road to Rees Hill Road.
Bizarrely, last night City staff said that since the Reimbursement District assessment per lot would be about $10,000, the $1.2 million raised (120 times $10,000) just about equals the cost of building the southern extension of Lone Oak Road. So the City of Salem would collect $1.2 million from the developers, then reimburse the developers for the $1.2 million they'd just paid to the Reimbursement District.
Um, here's another idea: ditch the idea of the Reimbursement District and simply have the two developers build the southern extension of Lone Oak Road for $1.2 million, sharing the cost between them.
Bottom line: the Lone Oak Road reimbursement district is a solution in search of a problem. Read my testimony below for why this is the case.
Stonewalling. Obfuscating. Ignoring. There's numerous ways to describe how City of Salem staff are failing to respond to questions from the South Gateway Neighborhood Association (SGNA) about why the Creekside developer hasn't been required to build an extension of Lone Oak Road, the cost of which would be borne by the public if a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District gets a go-ahead from the City Council next Monday. The neighborhood association is justifiably irritated at how they've been treated by City staff. Here's an excerpt from a letter submitted by SGNA as advance testimony for the March 26 hearing on…
I've got no problem with reporters dishing dirt on stories from another news outlet. But it sure seems that if they do this, their own coverage of the issue -- or in the case of the Statesman Journal, non-coverage -- becomes open to critiquing. Yesterday Statesman Journal reporter Jonathan Bach tweeted about a follow-up story regarding the Creekside development and Lone Oak Road in our town's alternative paper, Salem Weekly. Gordon Friedman, who used to be a Statesman Journal reporter and now works for the Oregonian, chimed in with a comment on Bach's tweet, as did another person. Here's my…
Today I had an stimulating conversation about Salem, including political goings-on, with a person who had some appealingly fresh ideas about what needs to change in our city to make it a better place to live for everybody -- not just the already well-off. Our talk got me to thinking about what Salem would be like if... where what follows the "if" is an outcome unconstrained by what exists today, because that would pretty much guarantee more of the same. Here's a sampling of what my mind came up with. What if Salem... -- Had a City Council that truly…
After I wrote an opinion piece for Salem Weekly, "Larry Tokarski leaves the public with a $7.5 million development bill," an attorney representing Tokarski, James Vick, sent a letter to me and the Salem Weekly publisher taking issue with the piece.In the current issue of Salem Weekly there's a story by Helen Caswell that delves into a couple of questions reflected in Vick's letter: (1) Is it correct to call Larry Tokarski the Creekside developer?(2) Was the City of Salem responsible for raising the cost of constructing a bridge over Jory Creek and an extension of Lone Oak Road? Regarding…
I'm a proud member of Progressive Salem. It's great that the group has helped elect five progressives to the City Council, a majority. But here's some constructive criticism about how Progressive Salem decides who to endorse. So far, Progressive Salem is sitting on its hands when it comes to the Ward 4 race in south Salem. This seems ridiculous, since the two candidates are... Steve McCoid, the incumbent, who was narrowly elected in 2014 by about 200 votes. He defeated Scott Bassett, who was a Salem United candidate, which was a sort of precursor to Progressive Salem. McCoid leans conservative.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Now that most of the easily buildable vacant land in Salem has been utilized for residential development, construction on the acreage that remains is bound to be more controversial. This was clearly evident at last night's City Council meeting, which featured a lengthy hearing on the proposed Dogwood Heights subdivision near Croisan Creek Road and Madrona Avenue in south Salem. I watched much of the hearing via the CCTV stream because my wife and I are looking into buying a house in the Salem city limits (currently we live in rural south Salem), and Dogwood Heights is in an area…
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…
The writing is on the wall as regards the eventual demise of the Salem River Crossing, a.k.a. Third Bridge. Or rather, the writing is in the form of a motion to be made by Mayor Chuck Bennett at next Monday's City Council meeting to form a Council task force "to evaluate options for reducing traffic congestion and improving vehicular mobility around the Marion and Center Street bridges." Download CITY OF SALEM - File #: 17-545 It seems clear that this is how the Third Bridge will begin to die after opponents were successful in getting the Land Use Board of…
I remember when conservatives used to actually believe in conserving things. Like money. And nature. My mother, an ardent Republican, was one of those old-time conservatives. She was frugal. She was an environmentalist before that word came into fashion. Remembering the Great Depression (she was born in 1912), my mother hated to waste anything. For a long time, "conservative" and "conservation" almost meant the same thing. A 2015 Think Progress piece talked about this in Republican Politicians are Betraying Their Party's Legacy of Conservation. “You’re worried about what man has done and is doing to this magical planet that God…
Next Monday, October 23, the Salem City Council is set to vote on whether to approve the Strategic Plan that it's been working on for about a year. Looking over the plan, I was hoping to find a lot that excited me. Maybe I was expecting too much, since only a few things made me think, Wow, that's cool! Download Salem Strategic Plan Still, I give the City of Salem and its consultants credit for page 1, "Plan on a Page." The only problem is, on that page there's little to be enthused about -- since this is where the…
When I first got heavily involved in Salem politics about four and a half years ago (after the horrendous needless killing of the U.S. Bank trees got my ire up), fellow progressive citizen activists would tell me, "The Chamber of Commerce runs this town." Well, this isn't true any more. And that's a very good thing. To understand why, take a look at the goal of the Chamber of Commerce's political action committee, Build Jobs PAC. As should be obvious from its name, the Chamber really is only interested in one thing: jobs. But obviously there's a lot more to…
Rebecca Maitland Courtney is frustrated with her home town. She has a right to be. After coming up with the idea for Arta Potties, artistically-decorated portable toilets that serve both the homeless and ordinary people, she's finding that other cities are giving her a lot more love than Salem. I just spent an enjoyable hour talking with Courtney. She's a caring, creative woman who can't understand why it is so difficult for people in Salem to come together and embrace a great idea: making restrooms a right for all in downtown, rather than a privilege for those who have the money…
Every Salem City Council meeting begins with the Pledge of Allegiance. Whenever I'm at a council meeting, I'll stand for the pledge, but I don't say it or put my hand over my heart. The whole idea of the Pledge of Allegiance just strikes me as decidedly creepy. From what I can tell by some Googling, North Korea is one of the few other countries in the world that are so enamored of a pledge of allegiance. Of course, in North Korea the pledge is to the Supreme Leader. Here, the first mention of allegiance is to the United States…
Whether or not you believe Salem needs to spend more than $400 million on another bridge across the Willamette River, this CCTV interview between Ken Adams and Bob Cortright will help you understand what's going on with the Salem River Crossing project. Sure, I know a 26 minute video can seem like eternity in these days of 30-second social media attention spans. But Adams and Cortright do a great job of digging into some details that everybody in Salem should know about. I jotted down some notes as I watched the video while eating breakfast this morning. Here's ten things…
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