Posted inOregon politics

Oregon Democrats thankful their redistricting maps are legal

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Oregon Democrats got a double dose of good redistricting news this week. So quite a few Dems will be happier at the dinner table tomorrow, while Republicans will stew about the legal decisions. On Monday the state Supreme Court upheld the redistricting maps for the state legislature.  Up, in, around or out? It's a question facing dozens of incumbent lawmakers and scores of potential challengers after the Oregon Supreme Court on Monday removed legal obstacles to implementing new legislative political districts. The justices dismissed two lawsuits against new maps for 60 House and 30 Senate…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Police reform

Unwise: Salem Mayor wants 60 more police officers

Of all the things that Salem needs, 60 more police officers should be way down on the priority list. But I've been told that this is what Mayor Chuck Bennett is calling for, apparently during a recent City Council work session about the 2022 Policy Agenda. Adding 60 officers to the force is a big deal that needs to be justified with extremely solid data and reasoning, not just because the Mayor or Chief Womack likes the idea.  Here's a thoughtful analysis of this seemingly unwise notion that someone sent to me. I would like to suggest that you snark…
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Posted in2022 election Chuck Bennett City Council

2022 Salem City Council and Mayor races get interesting

Even though we're still six months away from the May 2022 election that typically decides City Council and Mayor races (50 percent + 1 vote and you win outright, even though the election is a "primary"), things are already getting really interesting.  The Statesman Journal has a story that describes the current state of affairs: "Salem City Council set for a shake-up in 2022. Here's who's in and who's out so far." Tom Andersen, the Ward 2 city councilor, isn't running for re-election. He was the first progressive elected to the City Council and serves as the unofficial leader of…
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Posted inCity Council Homeless

City Council struggles with managing vs. ending homelessness

Tonight the Salem City Council had a work session on its 2022 Policy Agenda. I watched some of it, but I have a low tolerance for discussions of this sort that tend to have elected officials and staff talking at length without really coming to grips with key issues in a fashion that ordinary people can relate to. (If you have a high tolerance for this, the work session can be viewed here.) Of course, maybe I missed a part of the work session where city councilors did come to grips with the top priority of the City of Salem…
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Posted inCity Council Police reform

Crisis response team for Salem showing some life

Good news! City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke sent me a message today about state grant money being available for a Salem mental health crisis response team similar to Eugene's highly successful CAHOOTS program.  This comes after the crisis response effort Nordyke has been pushing for met with a setback in September, when the Marion County Board of Commissioners balked at allowing Salem to use state funds that went to counties for crisis stabilization services. As you can read below, $10.5 million in state grant money is coming directly to Salem, so Nordyke hopes a chunk of that can be used for…
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Posted in2022 election

Rep. Kurt Schrader not running for re-election in Salem’s district

The good news for Salem progressives is that Rep. Kurt Schrader won't be representing this area any more, which now is in the 6th congressional district, since Schrader often acts more like a Republican than a Democrat. The (possible) bad news for central Oregon progressives is that Schrader has decided to run in the 5th congressional district -- his current district -- which after redistricting includes Bend. Moderate is the charitable way to describe Schrader. A more accurate way is to call him an obstructionist, since he delights in standing in the way of President Biden's priorities, most recently delaying…
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Posted inNational politics Oregon politics

Bad and good news for Oregon Democrats after Tuesday’s elections

Yesterday was horrible for Democrats. There's no other way to put it.  After going for Biden over Trump by ten points in 2020, Virginia elected the Republican candidate for Governor, Glenn Youngkin, by several points. He was endorsed by Trump, but avoided an overly close connection with Trump. And it looks like the GOP will recapture the Virginia House of Delegates Almost equally disturbing for Democrats was the close race for New Jersey Governor. That state went for Biden over Trump by sixteen points in 2020. The incumbent Governor, Democrat Philip Murphy, beat his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, by just…
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Posted inCitizen involvement National politics

Sustaining Democracy book fizzles out on how to do it

I loved Robert Talisse's Sustaining Democracy book. Until I read the final chapter. Then I felt the same letdown as when I put in many hours watching a TV series that promises to eventually tie together compelling plot threads in a satisfying fashion, only to find that the final episode falls flat. But this doesn't take away from the brilliance of Talisse's analysis of what typically goes wrong in a democracy. It has a certain Marxist feel, since he persuasively argues that a democracy contains the seeds of its own destruction. In brief, his argument is that democracies want citizens…
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Posted inCitizen involvement

Difficult-to-hear truths in “Sustaining Democracy” book

I guess it was good timing. Just as the fight in Washington D.C. over the Build Back Better bill and related bipartisan infrastructure bill hit a crescendo the past few days, I started reading a book by Robert Talisse, "Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other Side." I'd learned about the book by hearing an interview with Talisse on the POTUS channel on satellite radio. Even though it's a rather spendy Oxford University Press hardcover, I liked what Talisse was saying. (He's a philosophy professor specializing in democratic theory.) The book is aimed at a general audience, thankfully.  I've…
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Posted inEnvironment Land use

Thirty-acre Meyer Farm property in south Salem may be developed

If you drive past Trader Joe's on Hilfiker Lane SE, on your left you'll see a surprising urban sight: thirty acres of beautiful undeveloped land.  Unfortunately, there's a decent chance that before too long this property will become thirty acres of much less beautiful developed land. But not if a group of people devoted to seeing the land remain as natural as possible succeed in their effort to stop the planned subdivision. Consider joining the Friends of The Meyer Farm Facebook group if you share their goal. The Statesman Journal has done some good reporting on plans for the Meyer…
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Posted inNational politics

If Democrats can’t pass a voting rights bill, democracy dies

There are times when it makes sense to ignore the political mess that is Washington, DC. This isn't one of them. Today may have marked a milestone in how our democracy died -- not through a violent coup, but through two Democratic senators refusing to do away with the Republican filibuster of the Freedom to Vote Act. This is the replacement for the considerably more expansive voting rights act that started off as the first bill introduced in both the House and Senate, indicating how important it was to congressional Democrats. However, Senator Manchin of West Virginia, who often sounds…
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Posted in2020 election Marion County politics

Salem voters need to realize they’re in Marion County

Aside from West Salem, which is in Polk County, everybody else who lives in Salem is in Marion County. Unfortunately, when it comes to electing the county Board of Commissioners, too many Salem voters tend to forget the reality of this map. For a long time -- I'm not sure how many years it has been -- the three members of the Marion County Board of Commissioners have all been Republicans.  Most recently, in November 2020 Republican Danielle Bethell handily beat Democrat Ashley Carson Cottingham 52-44. Yet the voter registration breakdown for Marion County as of September 2020 showed an…
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Posted inCity of Salem Homeless Police reform

We need to keep Salem from having Portland’s problems

I used to have Portland envy. Not so much that I wanted to move there -- I've had a Salem address since 1977 -- but Portland seemed like the cool kid to our north, while Salem was decidedly geeky. Now, though, I'll happily take Salem, even if termed So-Lame, over Portland's increasing dysfunction.  Every night my wife and I watch the Portland late night news on KGW. I used to fast forward through a couple of minutes of crime news, because I don't like the "If it bleeds, it leads" sort of journalism.  Throughout 2021, and especially recently, shootings, vandalism,…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

Anti-racist resolution passed by Salem-Keizer School Board

Racism is bad. This should be a uncontraversial position, but last night there was plenty of arguing about the pros and cons of a Salem-Keizer School Board resolution calling for a commitment to equity and antiracism. Here's a PDF file of the resolution. I've also copied it in below.Download Salem-Keizer School Board Antiracist Resolution I watched much of the public testimony online, along with the board's discussion of the resolution. My main takeaway is that the school board did the right thing when it approved the anti-racist resolution on a 4-2 vote -- with the four recently elected progressive board members…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City Council Police reform

Salem Police Department survey has problems, like the department

The Salem Police Department wants people to take a survey about the strategic plan being developed to guide how the department operates in coming years. I completed the survey today. And I could have completed it over and over, for as long as I wanted, because the survey allows people to respond more than once to it. This alone makes the value of the survey dubious.  Letting people fill out the survey multiple times makes it vulnerable to vote manipulation by vested interests -- either pro-police or anti-police -- who want to skew the results in their favored direction.  The…
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Posted inCity of Salem Homeless

City Council to reconsider West Salem homeless micro shelter camp

Complaining works. A Salem Reporter story, "Salem City Council to reconsider west Salem managed camp after opposition from neighbors," tells the outraged tale. West Salem's city councilor wants the council to reconsider allowing a managed homeless camp on Wallace Road after residents objected to the plan. At a Monday meeting, the council will hear a motion from Councilor Jim Lewis to reconsider the council’s previous approval of a managed camp along Wallace Road following overwhelming opposition to the project voiced during a Tuesday meeting at Salemtowne. In council documents, Lewis explained that he wanted the council to withdraw its approval…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City Council City of Salem

Homelessness is the top concern of Salem residents

Recently the City of Salem released the results of its 2021 Community Satisfaction Survey, which is conducted annually by contacting a random sample of about 400 residents.Download City of Salem 2021 Community Satisfaction Survey - September 2021 Not surprisingly, city officials put a positive spin on the results in their Salem Connection email blurb. Ah, note the mention of "core City services." It's true that most people, 70%, are satisfied with city services. But that's a big drop from the 86% satisfaction in 2020. Since Covid was with us in both years, the pandemic doesn't seem to be the reason…
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Posted inNational politics

Debt ceiling fight shows how dangerous Republicans are

Just when I thought the dysfunction in Congress couldn't get any worse, it has. And not by a little, by a lot. What's grabbed the part of my brain that is prone to panic is another fight over raising the debt ceiling. That's the ridiculous century-old law that requires Congress to vote on paying for the federal debt that already has been incurred. The usual way of describing it is agreeing to pay for the credit card charges you've already made. For almost all people, that's a non-choice. Of course, we pay for what's already been put on our credit…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Police reform

Setback for Salem mental health crisis response team

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 about $2.1 million a year. But now the Salem project is on life support, according to a Salem Reporter story, "Salem, United Way halt plans for mental health crisis responder program."  The city of Salem paused its plans to start a program…
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Posted inUncategorized

350 Salem OR’s TOP TEN Climate Action Strategies

Nicely done, Salem branch of the 350 climate action organization that advocates for reducing carbon pollution as much and as rapidly as possible. Below are the top ten climate action strategies that 350 Salem OR submitted to the City Council as a public comment in advance of last Monday's work session on the Salem Climate Action Plan. This is how their web site introduced the strategies. To meet the Salem City Council’s goal of a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2035 it is critical that the City focus on the most effective reduction strategies immediately, particularly related to…
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