Posted inCity Council Oregon politics

If you don’t want elected officials doing public business behind closed doors, urge the governor to veto HB 4177

Every legislative session in Oregon features some bad bills that somehow get passed. Then the only remedy is for the governor to veto a bad bill. That's what needs to happen with HB 4177, which seriously weakens Oregon's public meetings law -- as I warned last month in "Really irritating that Oregon legislature may weaken public meetings law that Mayor Hoy violated." A March 11 Oregonian editorial calling for Governor Kotek to veto HB 4177 describes the worst part of the bill: a provision that allows a majority of the members of a public body to meet in secret to…
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Posted inCity Council Julie Hoy Oregon politics

Really irritating that Oregon legislature may weaken public meetings law that Mayor Hoy violated

I'm a proud Democrat, but I'm not shy about criticizing my political party when it does something stupid. Like, being on the verge of passing a bill in the current short session of the Oregon legislature that markedly weakens a prohibition on "serial communications" -- which basically means a governmental body, like the Salem city council, deliberating secretly rather than in a public meeting open to the citizenry. Salem Mayor Julie Hoy was the ringleader of a scheme to use serial communications (individual conversations with members of the city council) so Hoy could force Keith Stahley, the city manager back…
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Posted in2026 election City Council

Once again, city council and mayor candidates in May election are divided into progressive and conservative tribes

In an ideal world, which for sure we don't have, political candidates would be judged on the basis of their unique individual qualifications and not on which political tribe they belong to. Maybe because they don't belong to any tribe, having foresworn membership in the Democratic, Republican, or some other party. But we live in polarizing times. And unlike a parliamentary system, our country has two enduring dominant political parties. So even though nationally unaffiliated voters are 47% of the electorate, with Republicans and Democrats at about 27% each, there's a strong impetus for candidates to identify as progressive or…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Vanessa Nordyke

Creation of REACH makes Vanessa Nordyke’s dream of a Salem mental health crisis team a reality

For quite a few years Councilor Vanessa Nordyke has been working to bring a mental health crisis team to Salem. I've written about her ups and downs in various blog posts: "Setback for Salem mental health crisis response team" (September 24, 2021) Led by Vanessa Nordyke, last June the Salem City Council appropriated $135,000 for a mental health crisis response team similar to the CAHOOTS program that has been a big success in Eugene — where a medic and crisis worker handle about 17% of the police department's call volume, saving about $12 million a year at a cost of…
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Posted inCity Council Julie Hoy

Salem Mayor Julie Hoy is guilty of orchestrating an ethics violation, but has the delusion she did nothing wrong

I've heard that Mayor Julie Hoy attended Trump's Washington D.C. inauguration in January of this year. I'm surprised that she hasn't gotten a job with the Trump administration, because Hoy is fully Trumpian when it comes to refusing to admit obvious wrongdoing. An Oregon Government Ethics Commission investigation found that Mayor Hoy orchestrated an illegal "serial communication" among a majority of the members of the City Council that ran afoul of the Public Meetings Law requirements. Last February Hoy subverted what should have been a public process of deciding whether City Manager Keith Stahley should remain in his position into…
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Posted inCity Council Public Safety

City Council rethinks whether putting convicted murderer on Police Review Board is a good idea

The story of Kyle Hedquist is a good example of how complicated it can be to decide what's right and what's wrong when it comes to the American justice system. Which needs a lot of improving, since the United States has a much higher percentage of the population in prison than other high-income countries, and we do a crappy job of rehabilitating prisoners, given our focus on "lock em' up" punishment. The Marion County District Attorney described Hedquist's crimes after his life sentence was commuted by Governor Kate Brown in 2022 after he served 28 years in prison. The boldfacing…
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Posted inCity Council Julie Hoy Vanessa Nordyke

Salem Mayor Julie Hoy refuses to admit to her ethics violation, while five councilors victimized by Hoy did

The title of a Salem Reporter story by Joe Siess pretty much says it all: "Mayor Julie Hoy stands alone as all councilors concede ethics violation." Excerpt: Three more Salem City councilors who participated in an illegal serial meeting orchestrated by the mayor in February have accepted responsibility for their actions and signed agreements with the state ethics commission. Salem Mayor Julie Hoy stands alone as the only person accused by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission of unethical conduct who has not closed out the matter. She has not responded to the commission to indicate whether she will accept wrongdoing…
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Posted inCity Council Julie Hoy Vanessa Nordyke

Councilors Nishioka and Nordyke admit wrongdoing to Ethics Commission even though Mayor Hoy was the chief wrongdoer

Sadly, this is typical among elected officials these days. Those who have done something mildly wrong admit to it and apologize for the violation. Those who have something majorly wrong refuse to admit it and say there's nothing to apologize for. This appears to be the case here in Salem, where two members of the City Council, Linda Nishioka and Vanessa Nordyke, have told the Oregon Government Ethics Commission that they agree with the commission's finding that they, three other members of the council, and Mayor Hoy engaged in violations of our state's public meetings law last February. A Salem…
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Posted inCity Council National politics

Salem City Council declares federal immigration enforcement emergency

Yesterday, December 1, the City Council approved a resolution with a lengthy title: A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF SALEM RECOGNIZING THAT A STATE OF EMERGENCY EXISTS WITHIN THE COMMUNITY DUE TO THE IMPACTS OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS AND SETTING FORTH ACTIONS THE CITY SHOULD TAKE TO ADDRESS SUCH IMPACTS. It passed 6-3, with Mayor Hoy and Councilors Gwyn and Matthews voting against it. I guess they are fine with the Trump administration trampling on constitutional rights and striking fear in hard-working migrants whose only "crime" is that they entered the United States without documentation in search of a…
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Posted inCity Council Julie Hoy

At ethics commission meeting, Mayor Julie Hoy denies lying, which almost certainly is another lie

Salem Mayor Julie Hoy is digging herself deeper into an unethical hole. Yesterday Hoy claimed at a meeting of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission that contrary to the finding of a commission investigator, she never told City Council President Linda Nishioka that after speaking privately with members of the council, a majority wanted City Manager Keith Stahley to resign. Joe Siess of the Salem Reporter wrote in a story, Ethics commission finds Salem Mayor Julie Hoy, 5 councilors broke public meetings law: Hoy and Nishioka each disputed the other’s version of events during the commission meeting. Nishioka has repeatedly said…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Julie Hoy

Salem Mayor Julie Hoy lied about a majority of the city council wanting the City Manager to resign. Actually, only Hoy did.

A recently concluded ethics investigation found that the Mayor of Salem, Julie Hoy, violated our state's Public Meetings Law in February 2025 when she orchestrated a private series of individual conversations with city councilors about whether the City Manager at the time, Keith Stahley, should resign. That was bad. But this is worse: Julie Hoy lied when she told the city council president, Linda Nishioka, that her conversations revealed that a majority of the city council (at least five of the eight members; one seat was vacant at the time) wanted Stahley to resign. At the request of Mayor Hoy,…
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Posted inCity Council Julie Hoy

Ethics investigation concludes Mayor Julie Hoy and five city councilors violated Public Meetings Law

Today I received the results of an investigation by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission into whether Mayor Julie Hoy and seven city councilors violated various provisions of Oregon's Public Meetings Law. I got those results because I was one of two people who filed a complaint about the actions of Hoy and city councilors that resulted in the resignation of then City Manager Keith Stahley earlier this year. Elliott Lapinel was the other complainant. My complaint was in the form of a blog post, appropriately titled "Here's my Oregon Government Ethics Commission complaint about Keith Stahley's forced resignation." Josh Sullivan,…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Why the $32.5 million economic benefit from Avelo Airlines is a screwy figure

Let's get this clear right off the bat. I'm not an economist. Heck, I've never even had a college economics class. But I've got a pretty good sense of when an economic sales job appears to be B.S., or to put it more delicately, taken with a grain of salt -- meaning, skeptically.  That's the feeling I have whenever I hear boosters of the Salem airport having commercial air service speak of the economic benefit to our city from having an airline fly in and out. Salem hasn't had any success in keeping an airline for more than a few…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

City Council needs to forget about commercial air service in Salem

Wow. Travel Salem and other Chamber of Commerce types really have memory problems. It's only been a few weeks since Avelo Airlines announced it is pulling out of the Salem Airport as of August 10 after just a couple of years of sucking up hundreds of thousands of dollars of subsidies provided to the airline, along with benefiting from $2.4 million in airport improvements that came out of the same general fund that city officials claim is going broke, which is why voters were asked to approve a property tax increase to fund city services, which they did. Yet even…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

City leaders wrongly preventing councilors from attending neighborhood association meetings

Officials at the City of Salem -- city attorney, mayor, city manager, maybe others -- really need to take the story of Goldilocks to heart. Or the Buddhist middle way.  Because they've jumped from one extreme that got city officials in hot water (an ethics complaint that I filed, which currently is being investigated by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission), to the other extreme where those officials are putting on ice the ability of a city councilor to attend neighborhood association meetings in their ward. So because Mayor Julie Hoy and other members of the city council engaged in a…
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Posted inChamber of Commerce City Council City of Salem

Avelo Airlines leaving Salem in August. My reaction: “I told you so”

To nobody's surprise except the City Council, Chamber of Commerce, and Travel Salem -- who assured citizens in 2023 that this time, really, you can count on it, an airline offering commercial service will remain at the Salem airport -- Avelo Airlines has announced that as of August 10 it will no longer have flights to and from our once-again airline'less city. Here's an excerpt from today's Salem Reporter story by Rachel Alexander and Mirandah Davis-Powell, "Avelo pulls out of Salem." Avelo Airlines is ending flights out of Salem in August, leaving the community again without a commercial operator after…
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Posted inCity Council Downtown T.J. Sullivan

Chair of Salem Main Street Association says I’m not welcome in downtown anymore

At last Monday's City Council meeting, T.J. Sullivan, board chair for the Salem Main Street Association said in the public comment period, "There are a couple of people who are about the complaints who aren't welcome in downtown Salem anymore." T.J. Sullivan Sullivan was referring to the complaint against Mayor Julie Hoy that I filed with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. (Another person filed a similar complaint.) That complaint was found to have merit after a preliminary review, and a full investigation of Hoy and city councilors will take place. It appears that Sullivan has been watching too much Fox…
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Posted inCity Council Julie Hoy

Mayor Julie Hoy can’t get her story straight about Ethics Commission investigation

A few days ago the Salem Reporter published another informative story about the Oregon Government Ethics Commission decision to investigate Mayor Julie Hoy and city councilors for failing to comply with our state's public meeting law. Julie Hoy Here's an excerpt from "State investigator concludes Salem council discussed manager's ouster out of public view" by Joe Siess.  Mayor Julie Hoy and Salem city councilors appear to have engaged in an illegal serial meeting leading up to the departure of former Salem City Manager Keith Stahley in February, a state investigator concluded in a preliminary report.  That report led the ethics…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Julie Hoy

Ethics Commission approves investigation of my complaint against Mayor Hoy

Really satisfying. Today the Oregon Government Ethics Commission agreed to open an investigation into my complaint against Salem Mayor Julie Hoy that alleged she engaged in prohibited serial communications with members of the City Council that resulted in the forced resignation of City Manager Keith Stahley.  You can read my complaint that's in the form of a blog post: "Here's my Oregon Government Ethics Commission complaint about Keith Stahley's forced resignation." Another person, Elliott Lapinel, also filed a complaint about the same allegation. Both the Salem Reporter and Statesman Journal have stories about the investigation. Here's excerpts from the Salem…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Salem-Keizer school district

Salem area special election results looking good, especially to liberals

With Oregon allowing mailed ballots to be counted as long as they're postmarked on or before election day, more ballots will be received in the next few days. But the current results for key races in the Salem area likely will hold up, given the margin of victory (or defeat) in each of them. The biggest news is the 56-44 passage of Measure 24-514, also known as the Livability Levy. Given that there was no organized opposition to an increase in Salem property taxes to fund the library, parks, and Center 50+, it wasn't a surprise that the measure passed.…
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