Posted inCity Council City of Salem Third Bridge

“Alternative facts” in City of Salem Facebook post about 3rd Bridge tolls

I've been worried that the Trump administration's love of "alternative facts," otherwise known as falsehoods, would creep into other levels of government such as the City of Salem.  Well, today that worry manifested as reality in a post about 3rd Bridge tolling on the City's Facebook page.  I was deeply irritated after reading it, and not just because I'm strongly opposed to building an unneeded half-billion dollar 3rd Bridge, a.k.a. the Salem River Crossing (which would cost around a billion dollars once financing is included). What bugged me the most was the disregard for evident facts in the post. Look, I…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

Salem City Council to vote on tolling a 3rd Bridge (and likely existing bridges)

Are you ready and willing to pay a $1.50 toll each way to cross the Willamette River between West Salem and the downtown area? I'm sure not. But the Salem City Council is going to vote on this at their meeting on Monday, February 13, 6:oo pm, at City Hall. I'm urging citizens to tell Mayor Bennett and the seven city councilors (one seat is vacant) that, in short, NO WAY DO I WANT TO PAY A TOLL TO CROSS THE RIVER. You can email them: citycouncil@cityofsalem.netYou can testify during the public comment period (3 minutes maximum). Here's info posted…
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Posted inCity Council

Chris Hoy is best choice for Ward 6 Salem City Councilor

The March 14, 2017 special election to fill Daniel Benjamin's seat on the Salem City Council is really important for everyone in our town, not just people who live in Ward 6 -- the McKay High School area shown in brown below. Currently there are four progressive councilors on the nine-member City Council: Tom Andersen, Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, and Matt Ausec.  The Ward 6 election is an opportunity for progressives to be a majority, ending quite a few years of conservative domination in our liberal city.  There are four people running for the Ward 6 seat. Only two lean…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem T.J. Sullivan

Disturbing facts revealed about $749,000 Park Front urban renewal grant

After making a public records request to the City of Salem for documents related to approval of the $749,000 Park Front LLC grant, and reviewing what I got, I'm even more disturbed by how this grant request was handled -- which relates to how Downtown Urban Renewal funds are being handled in general. The easiest way to read this post is via an Adobe Spark web page I've fashioned. The images are larger on that web page, and copies of the documents are a bit easier to download and view. Just click below. Alternatively, scroll down and continue reading the…
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Posted inCity Council Jonathan Crow

I talk with Jonathan Crow about his Ward 6 City Council candidacy

Yesterday I talked with Ward 6 City Council candidate Jonathan Crow over beers and a hummus plate at the Commercial Street Ventis restaurant.  Jon told me he was going to have a Jonathan Crow for Ward 6 Facebook page up soon. Searching for it just now, I had the honor of being the first "like." And probably the first to share his page's photo.  After Jon contacted me via Facebook messenger, I was intrigued by his unconventional campaigning approach. Here's what he said: Good afternoon, I read your article and I thought I would introduce myself to you. My name is…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Salem Weekly

Salem Weekly’s bright ideas for the new City Council

Salem Weekly, our alternative newspaper, is an indispensable voice for those who aren't listened to by the Powers That Be in this town. The Salem Weekly editorial board leans decidedly progressive, but that's as it should be in Salem, a city that votes liberal. Here's their end-of-year editorial -- a wish list of ideas to be considered in 2017 by the new City Council. New, because there are three fresh progressive faces on the council.  Naturally I couldn't resist adding in my own comments (in blue) on each of the 18 ideas. 18 IDEAS FOR THE NEW SALEM CITY COUNCIL…
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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 inCity Council Downtown

Salem City Hall, let’s have some citizen JOY in 2017

Yesterday I wrote a blog post about Salem City Council goings-on that had "sad" and "pathetic" in its title. I don't enjoy doing this. I'd much rather be writing about the marvelous things City officials are doing that make almost everybody in town joyful.  But I can't do this, because such isn't happening. Under Mayor Anna Peterson's less than inspiring reign, she and her Chamber of Commerce-backed city council majority have chosen to focus on what pleases the already rich and powerful in Salem -- not on the needs and wants of ordinary people.  So, to offer up one significant…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

Third Bridge sadly staggers on in pathetic City Council meeting

Tonight five clueless members of the Salem City Council voted to move ahead with the unneeded, unwanted, and unpaid-for Third Bridge, a.k.a. the Salem River Crossing.  Let it be remembered who supported this billion dollar boondoggle: Mayor-elect and current city councilor Chuck Bennett, along with fellow councilors Steve McCoid, Jim Lewis, Brad Nanke, and Warren Bednarz. Councilors Tom Andersen and Diana Dickey voted against the bridge. Bednarz was roundly defeated in this year's election by Third Bridge skeptic Sally Cook. So his vote tonight can't hurt him. But Bennett, McCoid, and Lewis will be up for re-election in 2018. Their opponents…
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Posted inCity Council Daniel Benjamin

Citizens speak to City Council about racism and bigotry in Salem

Last night I was thankful to be part of a beautiful discussion of an ugly subject: racism, misogyny, and other forms of bigotry here in Salem, Oregon. The City Council meeting was held in the Library's Loucks Auditorium because so many people were expected to speak about the resignation of Ward 6 councilor Daniel Benjamin following his Facebook sharing of a video showing Black Lives Matter protesters being rammed by cars.  That expectation came true. The auditorium was almost filled to capacity when the meeting started. (I took this photo earlier than that.) Dozens of people used the public comment…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem North Campus

Appealing proposal to save North Campus historic buildings rejected by City/State officials

Here we go again... the City of Salem and the State of Oregon are doing something incredibly stupid. Yeah, I know, this isn't shocking news. Government officials are notorious for making bad decisions. In Salem, for example, the Mayor and her current City Council majority have laid plans to build an unneeded half billion dollar Third Bridge requiring $1.50 each-way tolls (on the two current bridges also) and want taxpayers to fork out $82 million for a vastly over-priced police facility that costs twice as much per square foot as it should. Oregon state government operates under the shadow of…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

Third Bridge planning by City of Salem is horrendously bad

Billion dollars, so what? Just trust us and pay the bill.   In a nutshell, that's how officials at the City of Salem are approaching the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, known also as the Salem River Crossing, Third Bridge, or Preferred Alternative. They're rushing to get an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) expansion approved that's necessary for the proposed bridgeheads on either side of the Willamette.  There's a joint hearing tonight at the 55+ Center, 6 - 9 pm, to hear public testimony on the UGB expansion. The Salem City Council, the Keizer City Council, the Marion County Commission and the Polk…
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Posted inCity Council National politics

An anti-science candidate shouldn’t be president. Or, a Salem elected official.

Facts matter. Objective reality is too precious to waste. Personal opinions need to be based on impersonal knowledge of how the world really is. I hold those truths to be self-evident.  So did my deeply conservative mother, an avid Republican who also was a big lover of science. I was raised reading both National Review and Scientific American. My mother was as thrilled with discoveries in particle physics and genetics as she was when Ronald Reagan became governor of California (where I grew up). That was then, when "conservative" and "science-loving" were totally compatible words. Today, the editors of Scientific…
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Posted inCity Council Creekside Golf Course

Water rate giveaway to Creekside Golf Course affirmed by City of Salem committee

Oh, goodie! I'm so excited that the Creekside Golf Course water rate scandal, a.k.a IrriGate, is continuing on its special-interest-kiss-up backroom-dealmaking course. This will give local political junkies like me even more raw material for snarkiness. When politicians fail to realize their mistakes, doubling-down on a stupid decision, it's entertaining to watch how far down the Rabbit Hole they will go before thinking, "Oh, shit, we should have turned around before hitting the slimy bottom." Here's a report I've gotten from a reliable source on today's Water-Wastewater Task Force meeting, the group that's been determined to foist a $600,000 water…
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Posted inCity Council Creekside Golf Course Peter Fernandez

More disturbing revelations about Creekside Golf Course water scandal

OK, Salem's IrriGate scandal isn't Watergate quality, and I'm no Woodward or Bernstein, but this tale of crony capitalism and special-interest deal making at City Hall still is fascinating to dig into and report on. Following up on Tracy Loew's initial reporting in a Statesman Journal story about how a City of Salem advisory committee voted to recommend that Creekside Golf Course get a $60,000 water rate break, a fellow citizen activist has shared some juicy tidbits with me about how this potential $600,000 giveaway to Creekside and other large irrigators came about.  (The outrage is magnified by the fact that…
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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 inCity Council Third Bridge

Third Bridge opponents and supporters have very different visions for Salem

I came away from last night's City Council meeting highly encouraged about the future of Salem. Sure, the immediate outcome was discouraging: a 6-2 vote to move ahead with an expansion of the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) to accommodate what I like to call the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, a third vehicular bridge across the Willamette that is unneeded, unwanted (by most people), and unpaid-for.  Councilors Tom Andersen and Diana Dickey voted against the UGB expansion. Councilor Jim Lewis was absent. That left Mayor Anna Peterson and Councilors Chuck Bennett, Steve McCoid, Daniel Benjamin, Warren Bednarz, and Brad Nanke on the…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

More Third Bridge outrages revealed at City Council meeting

The biggest story that hardly anybody is aware of here in Salem, Oregon is a billion dollar Third Bridge across the Willamette River. If ever built (and that's a big IF), it would be the largest public works project in Salem history. But our secretive Mayor and her City Council majority are doing their best to keep citizens uninformed and uninvolved, hoping that few people will notice a horrendous waste of taxpayer dollars on a bridge that doesn't solve any transportation problems, but lines the pockets of the Sprawl Lobby -- those who profit from unneeded government spending on boondoggles…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

Salem’s Mayor gets irked at my No 3rd Bridge sign

"Teacher, um, no, I mean MAYOR, don't kick me out of the City Council meeting! It was my pal who put me up to it, REALLY!" I felt like saying this when Mayor Anna Peterson interrupted a staff presentation at tonight's Salem City Council work session on the Salem River Crossing, a.k.a. the Billion Dollar Third Bridge Boondoggle. Check out this one-minute video.   But Peterson was so irked at me peacefully holding the sign that Jim Scheppke had given me, I decided to non-meekly put the sign in my lap rather than incur the Wrath of Anna and risk…
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Posted inCity Council Third Bridge

Salem City Council trying to sneak through billion dollar Third Bridge

Here's some juicy City of Salem gossip I heard today which has a ring of truth -- because it fits with the habitual secretive modus operandi of the Mayor and her right-wing city council majority:  Do the public's business as far outside of public view as possible, because that way it's easier for special interests like the Chamber of Commerce to wield their influence on Salem's local politicians.  What I was told by a usually reliable source is that City officials are hellbent to get local government approvals for the billion dollar Third Bridge boondoggle as far along as possible before January…
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