Posted inCity of Salem Peter Fernandez

Peter Fernandez’ retirement is good news for Salem

Peter Fernandez, the thoroughly sleazy Public Works Director for the City of Salem, announced he's retiring effective January 6, 2023.  This is cause for joy among those of us who follow goings-on at City Hall closely enough to be aware of what a disaster Fernandez has been during the fifteen years Salem has had to put up with his lies, dissembling, and poor decisions. It's remarkable that Fernandez wasn't fired long ago, given how poorly he's performed as Public Works Director. This shows that Salem is willing to put up with a lot of crap, so long as the crap-producer…
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Posted inPeter Fernandez

Why Salem’s Public Works Director should be fired

A few days ago I ended a blog post with a call to fire Peter Fernandez, the decidedly unethical Public Works Director for the City of Salem.  Peter Fernandez Today I got this message from Mark Wigg. Apparently Wigg planned to present what follows as testimony at tonight's City Council meeting. It provides a further reason for Peter Fernandez to be fired. Congratulations, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez Congratulations on spending all the 2008 bond money allocated for buying Marine Drive right of way without buying all the right of way. The other projects identified in the bond measure were aggressively…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City of Salem Peter Fernandez

Flooding in Battle Creek area needs to be taken seriously

Here's another tale of how staff in the City of Salem Public Works Department are failing to be open, honest, and transparent with citizens. Earlier this year I reported that documents received from a public records request proved that Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, and other staff lied about why a property on Taybin Road in West Salem was slated for purchase. Fernandez, et. al, claimed it was for stormwater management. Actually, it was to buy right of way for Marine Drive in an area that the City Council had declared off-limits for ROW purchases. So the credibility of…
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Posted inCity of Salem Micki Varney Peter Fernandez

As forests burn, Salem parks board OK’s cutting trees without a permit

It was quite a juxtaposition last night. While wildfires burn forests across Oregon, I watched the Salem Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (SPRAB) say "no problem" to a developer cutting down two large White Oak trees without a permit, after which Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, granted an after-the-fact tree removal permit 105 days after those trees, and three others, were removed. This was a horrible decision for reasons I'll describe below. The only good news is that the vote to deny an appeal by the Southwest Association of Neighbors (SWAN)  of the after-the-fact permit being issued was close,…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

City Manager is OK with a developer illegally removing trees

I'm no fan of Donald Trump's re-election campaign themes, but I do believe in law and order -- along with almost every other American. Unfortunately, the City Manager for the City of Salem, Steve Powers, has said that he is OK with the Public Works Director (Peter Fernandez) bestowing a tree removal permit on a developer (Thomas Kay) 105 days after the trees were cut down without a permit. Michael Slater, a strong advocate for trees in Salem, sent the following letter to Powers. Slater shared the letter on Facebook. You'll see that he made some strong arguments about why…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

City official issues tree removal permit 105 days after they were cut down

Peter Fernandez, the City of Salem Public Works Director, is still doing outrageous tree stuff -- seven years after public records that I got proved that Fernandez made an unethical backroom deal with a bank president to have five beautiful, large, healthy downtown trees removed for no good reason. The newest Fernandez outrage is well-documented in an appeal by the Southwest Association of Neighbors (SWAN) of a tree removal permit that was issued on June 25, with an effective date of June 28, even though the five trees were cut down on April 15.Download Salem Heights Tree Removal Permit Appeal…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

Salem City Hall, where staff always are right and concerned citizens wrong

We here at the world headquarters of Salem Political Snark, which just happens to be Salem, Oregon, absolutely love well-reasoned factual blog posts with a healthy dose of snark. Especially when those posts haven't been written by us. (Well, me, though there's always me, myself, and I, the unholy trinity.) So here's a big snarky thumbs-up to the always-interesting Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger for including these lines in a post today, "City Council, August 24 - Nonsense on Broadway at Pine." This is a real problem at the City. They have trouble admitting they are wrong. It sure seems like…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

Salem City Council ignores City Council vote. What’s going on here?

As Alice in Wonderland said, curiouser and curiouser. That's how I felt today about the Salem City Council after taking a closer look at the public records I got regarding the city's purchase of a house on Taybin Road in West Salem. My first blog post based on the records was "Salem City Council bamboozled by staff on Taybin Road property purchase." But now I'm wondering if the council is bamboozling itself. Or at least, acting at odds with itself, which is much the same thing. As background, below is an image showing the portion of Marine Drive that the…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

City staff appear to be undermining Salem City Council policies

A seemingly insignificant item on the July 13 City Council meeting agenda is a window into a really important question: are City of Salem staff undermining City Council priorities through shadowy, if not sleazy, administrative schemes? It sure seems so. Best undermining cartoon I could find. Substitute city staff for tunnel digger and City Council for people standing on top. On June 18 I wrote a blog post called "Shady stuff associated with Salem City Council agenda item." The agenda item was postponed, and a hearing on the appeal by E.M. Easterly of the city's purchase of a house at…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

Shady stuff associated with Salem City Council agenda item

By and large, I'm no conspiracy theorist. But I'm always ready to believe that when it comes to goings-on with the City of Salem, what appears innocent and boring at first glance may be the tip of a non-innocent non-boring "iceberg" below the surface. So I said "sure" when someone asked if I wanted to learn the backstory behind an appeal of a Systems Development Charge expenditure for the purchase of a house at 298 Taybin Road NW in West Salem. The appeal is on the agenda of the June 22 Salem City Council meeting. Before getting to the backstory,…
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Posted inCity of Salem Peter Fernandez Trees

Salem tree outrage: city officials slumber while chain saws thunder

It's an open secret that the folks at City Hall don't care much about protecting Salem's street trees. I've documented this over the years in numerous blog posts, the most notable one being "Outrage: the true story of Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings." Two of the U.S. Bank trees prior to their needless destruction  Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, was the city official who was most responsible in 2013 for the outrageous destruction of five healthy, beautiful, large downtown trees that weren't causing any problems.  But so far as I know, Fernandez didn't face any consequences for engaging in…
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Posted inCity of Salem Peter Fernandez Trees

Neighborhood association criticizes city officials for not enforcing tree ordinance

Way to go, South Central Association of Neighbors (SCAN) -- the neighborhood association that represents the area where Daniel and Richard Gatti knowingly destroyed four valuable street trees by topping them, yet so far haven't been required to pay the full cost of their value, as required by the City of Salem tree ordinance.  One of the mangled Gatti trees Here's the resolution that was passed by SCAN yesterday.  SCAN RESOLUTION OPPOSING FAILURE TO FULLY ENFORCE THE SALEM REVISED CODE CONCERNING STREET TREE REMOVAL Adopted by the SCAN Board on February 12, 2020 WHEREAS, on or about January 2, 2020,…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Peter Fernandez

Peter Fernandez, Public Works Director, is failing to enforce Salem’s tree ordinance

Just when I thought the wanton destruction of four valuable street trees by Daniel and Richard Gatti couldn't be more outrageous, it turns out I was wrong. Because Michael Slater reported in a Salem Tree Advocates post on Facebook that the City of Salem's Public Works Director, Peter Fernandez, has admitted that he hasn't been requiring people who improperly remove street trees to pay for the full assessed value of the trees, as is required by a city ordinance, SRC 86.105(c). l heartily agree both with Jim Scheppke's comment above, plus a post that Scheppke wrote on the Facebook page…
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Posted inCity of Salem Peter Fernandez Trees

Devastating critique of Salem’s Urban Forester program by a job applicant

It's an open secret to those of us who live here that the City of Salem doesn't treat our town's trees well, to put it mildly. But I was pleasantly surprised that a highly qualified person who applied for the City's Urban Forester position saw through the bullshit of City officials during a three-day job application visit and came to the same conclusion. You can read that person's critique below. It's devastating. Hopefully it will wake up the City Manager (Steve Powers), the Mayor (Chuck Bennett), and city councilors to the fact that Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, has…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Jim Lewis

Three facts about the controversy over Salem library moving to church property

We love facts here at the Salem Political Snark blog. We also adore opinions, which should be based on facts as much as possible. So here's some facts about the controversial proposal of City officials to temporarily house the public library in a building owned by the Salem Alliance Church, along with my opinions about those facts. Note: I'm going to send this blog post to officials at the City of Salem so they can check my facts. First, though, I invite you to sign a petition I started last Friday in support of the Salem Human Rights Commission, which…
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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 Peter Fernandez Sabre Ridge Estates

City of Salem favors rich developers over ordinary people

Here's a 3 1/2 minute excerpt from a half-hour interview Greg Fabos and I did with Ken Adams on his Salem CCTV show, "The Valley View." After some remarks by me, Greg speaks about how he's seen Salem change for the worse over the years when it comes to rich developers being able to trample on the rights of ordinary people. He says: There's a real negative feeling about what's happening in Salem, and I've been here a long time. It used to be a nice well-run city with, I felt, good concern for its citizens. Right now, it's at…
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Posted inCity of Salem Peter Fernandez

Salem subdivision gone wrong: City staff ignore horrendous screw-ups

This is a disturbing tale of how City of Salem officials have allowed a subdivision developer to trample the rights of neighbors, while ignoring two women's requests to explain how repeated screw-ups keep happening.  The subdivision is Sabre Ridge Estates, off of Sunnyside Road in south Salem. The women are Lisa Basalto and her mother, Lynn. Lisa wrote to me several weeks ago, looking for someone to help with her extremely frustrating situation. Below I've shared her story, along with some related photos and videos.  Last Thursday I went to the Basalto home. I've shared some of the photos I…
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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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