The folks at City Hall who made the indefensible decision to keep Salem residents in the dark for seven days after s sample was taken that showed high levels of a cyanotoxin in the water supply are trying to claim that a "10-day window" rule permitted this. In a Statesman Journal story, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez said: City officials “hung our hat” on EPA guidelines that allow for a 10-day period to make treatment adjustments to fix the water. After 10 days, the buildup of toxins becomes more serious. So let's take a look at how the 10-day EPA…
I'm a fan of strangeness. But there's pleasing kinds of strange and disturbing kinds of strange. Watching yesterday's special City Council meeting about Salem's toxic algae water crisis via a Facebook feed gave me the latter sorts of feelings...disturbing. Here's five things that struck me as strange: (1) That the meeting needed to happen at all. The City Council just had a meeting on Tuesday. But City of Salem officials botched their response to dangerous levels of toxic algae cyanotoxins in the water supply so badly, a special meeting on Friday was necessary. This wasn't exactly the biggest emergency Salem…
The Statesman Journal is doing a poor job of reporting on local news here in Salem. But what's the alternative? Well, an opinion piece in The Guardian is about how people in East Lansing, Michigan formed a local paper, East Lansing Info. About a decade ago, my historic neighborhood was facing the possibility of a giant commercial development being built just down the hill from us by a company known to have a troubled history. Worried about our way of life, the president of my neighborhood association and I started going to city council meetings. Watching our city government came…
A few days ago I blogged about newly-elected city councilor Jackie Leung's effort to fulfill a campaign promise by attempting to get the Salem City Council to reconsider its decision to form a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District. The Reimbursement District would raise money to pay for road improvements by collecting between about $4,000 and $10,000 from lot owners in the south Salem area when a home is built on their property. It's unclear whether the City Council will undertake a reconsideration of the Reimbursement District, which has to be done at next Tuesday's council meeting, because an agenda item implements…
Fresh off her upset victory in the Ward 4 City Council race, Jackie Leung is making good on her campaign promise to work hard on preserving open space in the Creekside neighborhood. She recognizes that unfettered development can't be allowed to diminish the quality of life for Salem residents. So Leung is asking the City Council to reconsider and overturn its recent narrow 5-4 approval of a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District. The Reimbursement District collects between $4,000 and $10,000 from lot owners in the south Salem area when a home is built on their property, then gives that money…
It's election night. Time for me to say "I told you so!" to those progressives who either thought Jackie Leung couldn't best Steve McCoid in the Ward 4 Salem City Council race, or felt that that McCoid was an acceptable moderate, so endorsed him even though Leung was by far the better candidate. Have a look, Councilors Tom Andersen and Chris Hoy, both of whom endorsed McCoid. Have a look, board members of Progressive Salem, who ignored requests to support the more liberal candidate in the Ward 4 race. Now, a 184 vote lead in Ward 4 likely will hold…
Watching last night's City Council final deliberation on a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District reminded me of a demolition derby. The plan that was approved on a 5-4 vote was the last one standing, like a bashed-in car with smoke streaming from its hood, oil leaking all over, fenders missing, dents everywhere. Not a pleasant sight, but in the eyes of a majority of City Council members, better than nothing. The Council considered four alternatives to the original Lone Oak Reimbursement District plan that landed with a resounding "no thanks!" thud at a public hearing a while back, which led…
Below is an opinion piece about the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District that I submitted to the Statesman Journal a month ago. I never heard back from the editorial board one way or the other, which in itself is a sad commentary on how far Salem's so-called "paper of record" has fallen. The Statesman Journal has published exactly nothing about this subject, even though it is a highly controversial issue that's consumed a lot of City Council time, and is of considerable concern to residents of the Creekside area, along with hundreds of lot owners in south Salem who would be…
Well, if you believe what people in Salem need is more conservative white men on the City Council and being charged a $1.50 each way toll to cross the Willamette River between downtown and West Salem, you'll love the Statesman Journal endorsements for the two contested council races on the May election ballot. Because the newspaper's editorial board -- which is made up solely of three Statesman Journal employees, no community members -- just endorsed the re-election of Jim Lewis and Steve McCoid to the City Council. So the editorial board said NO to Micki Varney and Jackie Leung. And…
City Council campaigns in Salem usually don't sink to the level Jim Lewis displayed in a video where he claimed that his opponent in the Ward 8 race, Micki Varney, "wants miserable traffic." I learned about this offensive lie in a comment Marcus Solomon left on a Facebook post of mine. Solomon captured this image of Lewis' video before the image was edited out: Shame on Councilor Lewis for engaging in the sort of political crap that usually only rears its ugly head at the state and national level. Obviously Micki Varney doesn't want miserable traffic. She has stated that she's…
In this Year of the Woman, politically and culturally-speaking, I find it surprising that Jacqueline (Jackie) Leung's Ward 4 City Council race against incumbent Steve McCoid isn't getting more attention. Five seats on the Salem City Council are on the May 15 ballot, the Mayor's seat and the seats of the councilors occupying the four even-numbered wards: 2, 4, 6, 8. Only two of these races are contested: Jackie Leung vs. Steve McCoid in Ward 4, and Micki Varney vs. Jim Lewis in Ward 8. Mayor Bennett is unopposed, as are councilors Tom Andersen (Ward 2) and Chris Hoy (Ward…
Understand: I've got nothing against self-congratulation. I love to tell myself, "You're doing a great job, Brian!" So there really wasn't anything all that unusual in Tom Andersen's 5-minute CCTV video where he asks voters to support his re-election to the Salem City Council, even though he is running unopposed. But as I watched the video, where Andersen talks about his various accomplishments during his first four-years as a city councilor, I kept thinking, I wish he'd give more credit to those who set the stage for those accomplishments. Of course, it is almost a given that politicians are going…
In a Statesman Journal piece, "Ward 8 candidate Jim Lewis shares reasons why he wants to continue work on Council," Lewis says he's against tolling on a new bridge across the Willamette River. As a matter of clarification, I want to dispel a rumor that I in some way support tolls for the existing two bridges and the new bridge, nothing could be further from the truth and neither myself or the residents of West Salem would allow tolls to ever be a part of the formula for funding. But at the April 24, 2017 City Council meeting, Lewis cast…
Well, there's either an innocent reason next Monday's City Council agenda contains a staff recommendation to postpone another vote on the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District from April 23 to June 11, or there's a hidden reason. UPDATE: The City Council decided to continue deliberations on the Reimbursement District at its May 14 meeting. The second option -- hidden -- seems more likely to me, so I'm going to run with that in this post. Plus, it's way more fun to engage in political conspiracy theories than take utterances from City Hall on controversial issues like this one at face value. …
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…
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