Posted inCity Council Police facility

Salem City Council meetings are unduly scripted

Scripts are for plays, movies, and TV shows where the plot, including the outcome, is laid out ahead of time. Public hearings aren't supposed to be scripted.  After all, what's the point of inviting citizens to express their opinions on an issue if members of a government body -- in this case, the Salem City Council -- have already made up their minds?  But as you can read below, this was the reaction of several people who attended last Wednesday's City Council hearing on a proposed new police facility: Mayor Peterson and the eight city councilors weren't open to new…
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Posted inCity Council Police facility

New Salem police facility seems to be on shaky voter ground

Well, after attending a 2 1/2 hour Salem City Council work session last night, I can report that six years of planning for a new police facility appears to be on track to end up as dysfunctional as it began. (See here for documentation of the messy process.) Which is too bad. The police department needs a new facility. But I observed the work session thinking, "Man, here's another reason voters probably will reject a bond measure in the November 2016 election." (For a comprehensive and readable analysis of this project, check out the Salem Community Vision position paper, "Salem's…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City Council

Conservatives are preventing Salem from being a true “collaboration capital”

Today the Salem Statesman Journal ran a surprisingly well-written editorial. Amazingly, because I'm a frequent critic of the paper, I found little to disagree with an analysis of last week's primary election, "5 lessons from City Council, other election races." Little, though, doesn't mean nothing. Reading Lesson #5 caused some mental raised-eyebrows. 5. Unity beats disunity If there is a political divide in Salem, it often is cast as progressives (i.e., liberals) versus business and specifically the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce. That is only partially accurate. The business community is not monolithic, whether in Salem or statewide. As we have…
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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 inCity Council

Thank you, candidates! (Politics is the craziest sport.)

I offer a heartfelt Namas'cray to all of the Salem people running for Mayor and City Council seats in tomorrow's 2016 primary election. Thank you for being crazy enough to put in so much time, effort, and money seeking an office that pays exactly nothing, requires a hell of a lot of work, and puts you in the firing line for constant criticism. Some of you, I heartily disagree with politically. Some of you, we're political bed-fellows. Doesn't matter. I honor your craziness, your fine madness: Carole Smith and Chuck Bennett, Mayor; Cara Kaser and Jan Kailuweit, Ward 1; Brad Nanke,…
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Posted inCity Council Steve Powers

City Manager Steve Powers talks about his job. And Salem.

The Salem City Manager heads up an organization with over 1,100 employees and a $466 million budget. In the private sector, a CEO with these responsibilities likely would earn $1 million a year, or thereabouts.  Steve Powers' annual salary, though, must be in the neighborhood of $176,000. (That's what his predecessor, Linda Norris, was slated to earn in 2015.) So Powers has a big job that pays comparatively little, pretty typical for government work. Yet he's accomplished the goal he set out at age 20: become a City Manager.  That's what Powers said at last Friday's Salem City Club talk, "The…
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Posted inCity Council Statesman Journal

Statesman Journal “Editorial Board” is a farce — all members are newspaper staff

In its bi-ennial ritual of kissing up to the Salem Chamber of Commerce and their biggest advertisers, the so-called Statesman Journal Editorial Board is rolling out its endorsements for Mayor and three contested City Council races. (So far they're two for two in endorsing Chamber candidates; in 2014 the newspaper was four for four.) I feel justified in using the term so-called to describe the Editorial Board, because all of the six members are employed by the newspaper. No community members are on the Editorial Board.  So when the newspaper says, "The Editorial Board endorses...," it would be more accurate…
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Posted inChamber of Commerce City Council Fresh Start Salem

Edgiest moments from Salem City Council Candidate Forum

Here's one unarguable takeaway from last night's City Council Candidate Forum: If you take the intense in-your-face vibe of either the Republican or Democratic presidential debates (especially the Republican) and flip it upside down, like turning matter into antimatter, you'll end up with something closely akin to Salem's oh-so-decorous candidate forum. Held in the Library's Anderson Room, and sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Marion and Polk Counties, along with the Salem City Club, the forum accurately reflected Salem's dual political personality: calm on the outside, seething on the inside.  So as I took notes about what the…
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