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…
5
Posted inCity Council City of Salem T.J. Sullivan

City of Salem pays $3.5 million for vacant property near riverfront. Why?

Since I don't watch City of Salem Urban Renewal meetings on You Tube (got to save my time for Succession), until today I wasn't aware that the Urban Renewal board, which is the City Council under another name, had approved paying $3.5 million for 1.14 acres of property near the riverfront. The property is marked with a red star. The triangular Park Front building is above it. The South Park apartments are below it. Riverfront Park is to the left of it. As I'll describe below, this seems like a questionable thing to do. In fact, it strikes me as…
No Comments
Posted inCitizen involvement T.J. Sullivan

Challenged to say what I’ve done to make Salem better, I’m pleased to reply

Blogs should come with a warning: If you ask a blogger questions that require some talking about themselves, expect a verbose answer. Especially if the challenge is to explain my contributions to Salem from a couple of people who appear to doubt that I've done anything useful in my entire life. Today they left rather similar comments on my post, "T.J. Sullivan is the Chamber's President-Elect. He's gotten well-deserved snark from me."  Concerned Citizen left the first comment. Hi Brian. Honest questions: What concrete things have you done to make Salem better? How many people do you currently employ and…
5
Posted inChamber of Commerce T.J. Sullivan

T.J. Sullivan is the Chamber’s President-Elect. He’s gotten well-deserved snark from me.

Ah, it's so fitting. The Salem Chamber of Commerce has chosen T.J. Sullivan to be its president-elect. Meaning, Sullivan is in the on-deck circle to come up and bat for this town's most notorious promoter of selfish right-wing business interests. To "honor" T.J. Sullivan (note the ironic quotation marks) I spent some time this evening Googling my previous blog posts about him.  Here's what I found, in chronological order: February 2016: "Salem Chamber of Commerce mass transit bill to aid Cherriots is dead." Sullivan led the Chamber's fight to defeat a payroll tax that would have brought weekend and evening bus…
6
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…
4
Posted inChuck Bennett T.J. Sullivan Urban Renewal

Salem Business Journal publishes my urban renewal “crony capitalism” story

"If you can write an Urban Renewal story by tomorrow noon, I will run it in the January Business Journal." This was the good news part of a reply I received from Bruce Taylor, publisher of the Salem Business Journal, after asking him via email if he was interested in a story about problems with the City of Salem's urban renewal agency.  I was pleased to get Bruce's positive response. The bad news part was, I read his message about five hours after he sent it, having been totally absorbed until about 8:30 pm in watching the mesmerizing men's basketball…
No Comments
Posted inCity of Salem Downtown T.J. Sullivan

Salem City officials asked to explain $749,000 giveaway. Waiting for answers…

Do Salem's Mayor, Mayor-elect, city councilors, and other officials care about Truth and Transparency? In a few weeks we'll find out.  By January 6 I've asked them to explain -- in a simple, clear fashion -- why a $749,000 urban renewal grant was approved for the Park Front building on December 12. The applicant was T.J. Sullivan, a former city councilor and current vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce. I asked city councilors to say why they were going to vote "Yay" or "Nay" on the $749,000 when I testified in opposition to this giveaway during the public comment period…
3
Posted inT.J. Sullivan Urban Renewal

Urban renewal crony capitalism is alive and well in Salem (may it die soon)

Last night the Salem Urban Renewal Agency board, which is just the City Council by another name, approved a $749,000 grant to T.J. Sullivan for his Park Front office building. Nine days ago I called this "crony capitalism" in a blog post written after Sullivan's application came to light. Nothing I saw at yesterday's meeting changed my mind.  Here's a video of my testimony, which includes an interchange between Councilor Jim Lewis and me. I'll share the text of what I said at the end of this post. My central points were based on two indisputable facts: (1) The City of…
No Comments
Posted inT.J. Sullivan

More crony capitalism in Salem: $750,000 for T.J. Sullivan’s downtown building

Man, the outrages never end when it comes to the Powers That Be in this town financially rewarding... get ready for a non-shocking revelation... other members of the Powers That Be. The newest example of Salem's crony capitalism is T.J. Sullivan's request to the Downtown Advisory Board for $749,999 to help pay for the $8.9 millionPark Front office building on the old Boise Cascade property adjacent to Riverfront Park. See: Download DAB agenda 12-01-16 Note: Sullivan's request letter asks for $749,000, but I guess the Downtown Advisory Board threw in an extra $999 just to get the total tantalizingly close…
1
Posted inPolice facility T.J. Sullivan

No, savings from Measure 24-399 WOULDN’T fund Civic Center seismic strengthening

Here's another T.J. Sullivan falsehood about Measure 24-399, the $82 million police facility bond on Salem's November ballot. (Sullivan's previous falsehood is described here.) At the September 23 Salem City Club debate on the police facility bond between Sullivan and me, he said this: So if we get $82 million for this new police facility, and we don't use the whole $82 million, we can, depending on how we write the bonding language, we can take that money and put it into retrofitting City Hall and the Library...That's the fastest way we're going to get City Hall and the Library…
2
Posted inPolice facility T.J. Sullivan

T.J. Sullivan lies about cost of proposed Salem police facility

Yeah, I know. "Lie" is a word that's supposed to be reserved for Donald Trump'ian sorts of deliberate falsehoods. "Misspoke," "shaded the truth," "was inaccurate" -- these are oft-heard replacements for "lie." But I don't what else to call what T.J. Sullivan, a representative of the Keep Salem Safe campaign that's advocating for Measure 24-399, the vastly over-priced $82 million police facility bond measure on the November ballot, did last night at a Morningside Neighborhood Association meeting. Sullivan spoke first during the "pro" and "con" agenda item. Then I had another five minutes to present the Salem Can Do Better…
3
Posted inChamber of Commerce T.J. Sullivan

Mean-spirited letter to editor cheapens Salem mayoral race

I'm fine with political snark. Obviously, given the theme of this blog. But ridicule, insults, and such should be based on some reasonable facts. Otherwise politics is reduced to childish name-calling.  Which is what frequent Salem Chamber of Commerce spokesman T.J. Sullivan did in a letter to the editor in today's Statesman Journal. Here's some excerpts.  I have worked with both Carole Smith and Chuck Bennett and had the opportunity to watch them engage with citizens in Salem. ...there aren’t many worse choices for mayor than Carole Smith. If she were elected mayor, and people like her elected to the City…
2