Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Salem’s city officials ignore danger of global warming

Salem can be a deeply irritating place to live when a comparison to other cities in Oregon screams Salem sucks!  A notable example is how Portland, Corvallis, Eugene, and other cities all have climate action plans aimed at reducing greenhouse gas polllution, while Salem doesn't. Because of the leadership of the current progressive majority on the City Council, a draft greenhouse gas inventory for the Salem area has been developed, though.  Recently Tracy Loew of the Statesman Journal wrote a great story, "Salem's per capita tailpipe emissions highest among biggest Oregon cities." (title of online version) Here's how it starts…
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Posted inCity of Salem Peter Fernandez

Salem Public Works Director doubts science of climate change

A few days ago our local chapter of 350.org, 350 Salem OR, called out Peter Fernandez, the Public Works director of the City of Salem, for appearing to doubt the reality of human-caused climate change that is causing our one and only Earth to warm dramatically and dangerously. When 350 Salem OR said it is "very troubling" that Peter Fernandez is unwilling to embrace the clear scientific consensus that climate change is happening, we humans are causing it, and reducing carbon emissions is a necessity, that's an understatement. Fernandez oversees Public Works, which probably is the largest department in the City…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Salem water getting $40 million ozone treatment system

Yesterday the Salem City Club learned how officials at the City of Salem are planning to prevent a repeat of last year's horrendous toxic algae infestation in the water supply. Horrendous, because city officials delayed notifying people about the cyanotoxins that had entered the water supply following a toxic algae bloom in Detroit Lake. This led to a lot of anxiety among both vulnerable populations and the rest of the citizenry that largely could have been avoided with more transparency from city staff. City Manager Steve Powers was appropriately contrite in his opening remarks, before he introduced the speakers who…
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Posted inCity of Salem Comprehensive Plan Cycling

Salem Comprehensive Plan update needs a dose of pizazz

First off, it's been a long time since I used "pizazz" in my writing. The word dates from 1935-40, and is out of fashion, but it seemed absolutely perfect to describe what I found missing in last Wednesday's meeting where progress on an update to the Salem Area Comprehensive Plan was discussed by City of Salem staff and hired consultants. This photo of the beginning of the "Our Salem" open house in the Court Street Christian Church captures the non-electricity of the gathering, which attracted about 30-40 people.  Sure, it was a warm sunny day, so sitting inside from 6-8…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

City Council stops “Big Weed” book removal at library. For now.

Well, a few days ago the title of my blog post was a bit off. I said "Final skirmish at hand in Salem Library 'Battle of the Books.'" But at last night's City Council meeting, a motion proposed by Councilor Chris Hoy passed unanimously. It puts the so-called Big Weed book removal effort on hold until the end of June, most likely. Here's how the leader of the Big Weed opposition, Jim Scheppke, put it in an email he sent out today. Dear Library Supporters: Last night the City Council voted not to resume the Big Weed for a couple…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Final skirmish at hand in Salem Library “Battle of the Books”

Back in November 2018 Jim Scheppke issued a battle cry to book lovers: the decimation of the Salem Public Library's print collection must be met with fierce resistance. See here, here, and here for my blog post reports about the first stages of the war against Library Director Sarah Strahl's efforts to implement what later became known as the Big Weed. Since, I've followed the exploits of Scheppke and his band of outraged library users with much admiration. They've been both relentless and reasonable in their efforts to understand why Strahl and her compliant Library Advisory Board feel it's OK…
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Posted inCity of Salem Comprehensive Plan

Fun facts about Salem (well, some aren’t so fun)

Thanks, Jim Scheppke, for sharing on Scribd an Our Salem: Today presentation by the City of Salem that was discussed on April 3 at a meeting of committees charged with advising staff on revisions to the Comprehensive Plan.

OK, that sentence probably doesn't make your heart race with excitement. But if you click on the continuation to this post, you'll be able to pursue a bunch of facts about Salem that really are quite interesting.

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For example, in the not-so-fun-fact category, Salem sucks when it comes to bicycling.

The miniscule blue bar in Salem's column shows that, compared to Eugene and other cities, very few people are riding bikes here. Which almost certainly is because the City of Salem has put very little effort into making cycling easy and safe to do. 

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On the positive side, the presentation included the first results of a Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

As shown above, Salem has considerably higher emissions per capita than Eugene, likely because our transportation system is so car-centric. Eugene has a much better bus system and bike paths.Screen Shot 2019-04-08 at 8.04.28 PMThat theory is supported by this chart, which shows Salem's reliance on automobiles leads to much greater per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector than Eugene enjoys.

So the next step the Salem City Council needs to take is creation of a Climate Action Plan that lays out concrete steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Click below to peruse the entire presentation. 

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Posted inCity of Salem Downtown Humor

Downtown Cherry Pits takes a satirical jab at Salem issues

I like satire. I admire humorous writing. And I appreciate efforts to improve downtown Salem. Downtown Cherry Pits is a funny satirical newsletter that hits on all three cylinders for me. The March 2019 issue has a great cover. There's a lot of good stuff in the other eight pages also. Check out the issue via this PDF file of a scan I made of it.Download Downtown Cherry Pits March 2019 Or if you're lucky, there will be some free copies left in a box hanging on the wall outside 363 Court Street NE in downtown Salem (next to Lullu's). Carole…
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Posted inCity of Salem Comprehensive Plan Smart growth

Let’s make Salem a “Strong Town” with wise development

Excellent news! A Strong Salem group has emerged on Facebook that seeks to do a heck of a lot more than just exist in cyberspace.  If you're on Facebook, join the group and get in on the ground floor of what promises to be a force for positive change in this town. For example, one of the first posts on Strong Salem talks about the Our Salem effort aimed at updating the Comprehensive Plan. A primary motivation for starting up this group is to keep a close eye on the the "Our Salem" project at the City, which is a multi-year…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Third Bridge

“Post-mortem” inquiry called for after Third Bridge dies

Obviously we can't be certain that the Salem River Crossing (or Third Bridge) project will die a well-deserved death tomorrow at the February 11 City Council meeting.  But since the six progressives on the nine-member Council all were elected after promising to fight what I like to call the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, smart money would bet on this draft letter being sent by the Mayor to the Federal Highway Administration and Oregon Department of Transportation on Tuesday.Download No Further Action PDF (City of Salem staff have another draft letter ready to go if, against all odds, the City Council were…
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Posted inCity of Salem Downtown Homeless

Salem’s homeless problem is hurting downtown businesses

Below you'll find a opinion piece about Salem's downtown homeless problem written by Carole Smith. She and Eric Kittleson live downtown and lease space to several Court Street businesses. So they have an up-close and personal perspective on how homeless people are impacting Salem's urban core. Smith submitted the piece as a guest opinion to the Statesman Journal, which declined to publish it. I have no idea why, since what she wrote is timely, provocative, and based on both her own direct experience and that of her tenants.  I'm also sharing a video Kittleson took on a Sunday morning around…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Land use

Heritage School needs to be treated fairly by the City of Salem

I like David and Goliath stories. I always root for David, the little guy or gal. That's why I'm hoping Salem's small 35-student Heritage School gets treated fairly by City officials and the City Council regarding its concerns about what the large, rich, and powerful Mountain West Investment Corporation wants to build adjacent to the school. A Statesman Journal story mostly misses the point about why the Heritage School wants to see changes made to a Mountain West proposal to build a 180-unit apartment complex next to the school.  The story, "Salem's Fairview Training Center was intended as a green…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Land use

City may buy Hillcrest after Mark Wigg proposed this. West Salem Loop is another Wigg idea.

This is a great example of bottom-up creativity here in Salem. As far as I know, the City of Salem had no intention of buying the 45-acre property that formerly housed the Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility until Salem activist Mark Wigg proposed this, and I shared Wigg's ideas in a September 2018 blog post that went to City officials: "Hillcrest is for sale. The City of Salem should buy it." Here's how my post started out. The State of Oregon has put the 45 acre Hillcrest property up for sale. According to Wikipedia, Hillcrest was a youth correctional facility that…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Steve Powers

Progressives rule City Council, but City of Salem has “deep state” problem

I'm not a fan of the whole deep state thing when Trump supporters use the term to denigrate career federal employees who are simply trying to do their job as best they can.  But rightly or wrongly, deep state has become a sort of shorthand for government officials hanging on to past policy positions after the political winds of change have begun blowing in a different direction. So that's how I'm using the term. After quite a few years of progressives being outnumbered by conservatives on the Salem City Council, they now enjoy a 6-3 majority. Tom Andersen, Cara Kaser, Sally…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Citizen activism wins latest skirmish in Salem Library Battle of the Books

Jim Scheppke, book lover and former Librarian for the State of Oregon, has done a great job at stimulating citizens to speak out about the Salem Public Library's misguided effort to purge tens of thousands of books from its core collection.  Here's Scheppke's report about last night's Library Advisory Board meeting at the library's Anderson Room that he posted on the Save Our Books Facebook page.  BOOKS WIN A REPRIEVE — FOR NOWThanks to a standing room only turnout of book lovers and supporters, the Library Advisory Board decided last night to continue the suspension of "the big weed" (as…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Library expert criticizes “core book” policy of Salem Public Library

Jim Scheppke knows a lot about libraries. He was the State Librarian of Oregon for two decades, and a librarian for 32 years. He doesn't like that the Salem Public Library is removing tens of thousands of books from its core collection to make room for new, trendy books.  Scheppke's opinion piece in today's Statesman Journal, "Preserve the core collection at Salem Public Library," struck me as well-written, nicely factual, and highly persuasive.  Here's some excerpts: At the beginning of October, the management staff at the Salem Public Library launched a project to permanently remove as many as 100,000 books…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Salem Public Library removing 30% of print book collection. Resistance is mounting.

Trigger warning: if you love books, and hate to see them mistreated, you might want to partially cover your eyes when viewing the photo below. I'm sorry that this blog post has to be so graphic, but as the saying goes, A picture is worth a thousand words. (And this post is much longer than that.) Jim Scheppke, a community activist and ardent library supporter, worked for the Oregon State Library for 25 years, 20 of them as library director (this is the library for the State of Oregon, not the Oregon State University library). Today he sent me this…
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Posted inCity of Salem Comprehensive Plan

Salem Futures project was killed by clueless conservatives

Echoing a Who song: Salem, let's not get fooled again. In the early 2000s a pioneering, far-reaching, creative Salem Futures project was killed by clueless conservatives. Our town has been paying the price ever since, as I'll discuss below. Here's how someone active in land use issues at the time recently described to me the ax'ing of Salem Futures. (Note: LCDC stands for Land Conservation and Development Commission. It oversees the Department of Land Conservation and Development, DLCD.) Mayor [Janet] Taylor killed the Salem Futures project after almost two years of work and a million dollars. LCDC was giving Salem…
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Posted inCity of Salem Cycling

Cycleshare program will show how difficult it is to bike in Salem

It's great that a bicycle sharing program, Capitol City Cycleshare, is set to begin around late January to mid-February. Aside from giving people in Salem an easy and inexpensive way to cycle, another benefit is that the program will show how difficult it is to ride a bicycle in most parts of our town.  An email message I got from Evan Osborne, who is leading the Cycleshare effort, says that seven stations are planned, with money currently available for six stations.  Hello Cycleshare Sponsors and Advocates, I am happy to announce all legal teams are in consensus with a formal…
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Posted inCity of Salem Land use

Eight large white oaks to be killed for a new Costco store in Salem

What's the value of eight lives? Is it greater or less than the desire of Costco to build a new Salem store on the graves of the deceased? I'm talking about the lives of large white oaks, not humans. But those are important questions to tree-loving people like me, which includes many of the neighbors who live near the Kuebler Gateway Shopping Center where the Salem Costco is planned to be relocated. Here's a photo of a beautiful white oak in our yard. I wanted to show it before discussing the rather dry details of what Costco is proposing to…
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