Posted inCity Council City of Salem Larry Tokarski

Salem Weekly delves into messy history of Creekside development

After I wrote an opinion piece for Salem Weekly, "Larry Tokarski leaves the public with a $7.5 million development bill," an attorney representing Tokarski, James Vick, sent a letter to me and the Salem Weekly publisher taking issue with the piece.In the current issue of Salem Weekly there's a story by Helen Caswell that delves into a couple of questions reflected in Vick's letter: (1) Is it correct to call Larry Tokarski the Creekside developer?(2) Was the City of Salem responsible for raising the cost of constructing a bridge over Jory Creek and an extension of Lone Oak Road? Regarding…
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Posted inJim Lewis Micki Varney Third Bridge

Salem Bridge Solutions isn’t trying to vote out anti-bridge city councilors

The Salem Bridge Solutions group is big on talking about building a half-billion dollar Third Bridge across the Willamette, but so far their actions are kind of puny.  A Statesman Journal editorial, "Group urges community to complete city survey on traffic congestion," included some brave words from Salem Bridge Solutions.  The SBS group's co-founders, Mike and Craig Evans, believe this survey, which runs through March 10, is a good way to capture every idea out there. But make no mistake. This group of third-bridge supporters that dresses in lime-green T-shirts and plants pro-bridge signs in West Salem front lawns is determined that the…
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Posted inCity Council Progressive Salem

Jackie Leung should get Progressive Salem support for her City Council campaign

I'm a proud member of Progressive Salem. It's great that the group has helped elect five progressives to the City Council, a majority. But here's some constructive criticism about how Progressive Salem decides who to endorse. So far, Progressive Salem is sitting on its hands when it comes to the Ward 4 race in south Salem. This seems ridiculous, since the two candidates are... Steve McCoid, the incumbent, who was narrowly elected in 2014 by about 200 votes. He defeated Scott Bassett, who was a Salem United candidate, which was a sort of precursor to Progressive Salem. McCoid leans conservative.…
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Posted inStatesman Journal Third Bridge

City of Salem’s downtown traffic congestion survey seems screwy

Look, I love surveys. Properly done, they're a great way to find out how people feel about some issue. But the City of Salem's survey about ideas to relieve downtown traffic congestion strikes me as a simplistic, poorly-thought-out effort. (Paper version is here; online version can be found here.) First, the survey is weirdly open-ended. It consists of a single question, with other queries being background information about the person taking the survey. Well, it isn't a bad idea to ask people this open-ended question. But as I noted in a comment on a Statesman Journal editorial about the congestion…
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Posted inGator Gaynor

Capitol Auto Group cancels sponsorship of Gator & Denise radio show

Let's give some love to the Capitol Auto Group for standing up to right-wing extremism and lies on a local radio show. If you want to thank the folks at Capitol Auto Group, a message can be sent via their web site's "Contact Us" page. A post on the Salem Resists Facebook page reports that after the Capitol Auto Group was contacted about advertising on KYKN, where the Gator & Denise show had mocked survivors of the Florida high school shooting and wrongly called one of them a "crisis actor," Capitol Auto Group said they had pulled their sponsorship of…
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Posted inMicki Varney

Micki Varney is a great candidate for the West Salem city council seat

If you live in Ward 8, which is most of West Salem, I hope you'll vote for Micki Varney in the May election. I've heard Varney speak several times, and it's obvious that she'll make a great Salem city councilor.  Here's a photo of Varney at a fundraiser for her campaign that I attended last night. I'm the gray-haired guy who has a blue jacket on the back of his seat. A close-up from her web site reflects some of Varney's appealing attributes: openness, honesty, intelligence, good humor. She's a salmon biologist who wants to use her scientific approach to…
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Posted inCreekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Is Larry Tokarski the developer of Creekside?

Yesterday I got a letter from an attorney representing Larry Tokarski. The letter also went to A.P. Walther, the publisher of Salem Weekly. It was in response to the opinion piece I wrote for Salem Weekly, "Larry Tokarski leaves the public with a $7.5 million development bill." Here's the letter: Download Letter from Tokarski attorneyThe gist of the letter is an assertion that Tokarski isn't the developer of Creekside. Well, let's look at some evidence that argues otherwise. My point in doing this is to show that a reasonable person, namely me, is justified in calling Larry Tokarski the "Creekside developer."…
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Posted inChuck Bennett Gator Gaynor

Gator & Denise hate radio show mocks Florida shooting survivors

Hate radio is despicable wherever it comes from. And when its being broadcast from right here in Salem, there's even more reason to condemn it.  Gator Gaynor and Denise Nanke (wife of city councilor Brad Nanke) took to the KYKN airwaves on Tuesday to mock the Parkland, Florida high school students who survived the massacre that claimed the lives of 14 classmates and three adults. How sick is that? Really sick.  I learned about this latest episode of the hate radio series that goes by the name of the Gator & Denise show via a Facebook post put up by…
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Posted inUncategorized

Gallup says Oregon is non-religious, liberal, and dislikes Trump

OK, the "headline" of this blog post isn't surprising news.  Still, political junkies like me love to pour over the statistics Gallup shared in a State of the States report, which is based on 2017 data. Below are screenshots for Oregon, the nation as a whole, Washington, and California.  Here's some key takeaways: Trump approval. Only 36% of Oregonians approve of  Trump, just a bit less than the 38% for the nation as a whole. Of the three West Coast states, California is the least approving of Trump at 29%, with Washington at 34%. Republican vs. Democrat leaning. Only 36%…
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Posted inChamber of Commerce

I have a pleasant talk with two Salem Chamber of Commerce staff

The title of this blog post admittedly sounds boring. What makes it wonderfully boring is that during all of my local liberal activism, I'd never had an hour-plus talk with someone from the Chamber of Commerce, much less two someones.  My primary connection with the Chamber has been criticizing its political positions, which lean decidedly toward the right. So when Natalie Jasinski, the Member Services staffer, asked if I'd like to get together to chat about how I see Salem, I jumped at the chance. We met at the Beanery in downtown Salem. Natalie brought along Kate Gillem, the recently-married…
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Posted inCity of Salem Downtown

Streetscape open house shows need for downtown streets to lose lanes

Last night the City of Salem held a second open house on the Downtown Streetscape project. I came away enthused about emerging ideas for improving the downtown area, but in an advance post about the meeting the Breakfast on Bikes blogger encapsulated the Big Problem with this project: The second Open House for the Downtown Streetscape project starts tomorrow, Tuesday the 13th, at 5:30pm. The project team hasn't published any new materials, so there's not much to say yet - other than to continue to push the City for changes to carspace. Until we grapple with the disproportion and zoominess…
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Posted inCity of Salem Creekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Salem City Council reconsiders making public pay for Lone Oak Road improvements

A citizen win! Last night the City Council voted unanimously to reconsider their decision to have the public pay for two extensions to Lone Oak Road in south Salem, rather than the developers who really should be footing the bill.  The impetus for the reconsideration was a letter from the South Gateway Neighborhood Association. Here's a screenshot of how it starts out. Download SGNA - Reconsideration of Lone Oak Reimbursement District There will be another public hearing on a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District at the council's March 26 meeting, if I recall the date correctly.  This is a complex…
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Posted inCity Council Creekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Neighborhood association asks City Council to reconsider Lone Oak Road decision

Good news! There's a chance Larry Tokarski, the Creekside developer, won't be able to walk away from his obligation to build an extension of Lone Oak Road after all.  The South Gateway Neighborhood Association has sent a letter to Mayor Chuck Bennett, Councilor Steve McCoid, and the other members of the City Council asking that the council reconsider its 7-2 decision to form a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District.  Download SGNA - Reconsideration of Lone Oak Reimbursement District Instead, as shown in the image above, the letter proposes an intriguing alternative idea. If Tokarski comes out on top in a…
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Posted inOregon politics

Pharmaceutical companies are behind full page ad opposing HB 4005

Don't be fooled by the full page ad in today's Statesman Journal opposing HB 4005, a bill that would require pharmaceutical companies to disclose pricing information about drugs they sell.  The group behind the ad, Caregiver Voices United, is a front for the pharmaceutical industry. Sure, you won't save at the pharmacy counter as a result of HB 4005 because the bill doesn't directly regulate drug prices. Rather, it brings some much-needed transparency into the price-gouging that pharmaceutical companies are notorious for. Here's an excerpt from an Oregonian opinion piece, "Oregon should force Big Pharma to fork over pricing info."…
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Posted inDowntown

Nordstrom space in Salem Center mall should become a “town square”

The Nordstrom store in downtown Salem is closing on April 6, according to a Statesman Journal story, "Nordstrom to shutter its store in Salem Center mall." A Rapid Response question in the newspaper about what should replace Nordstrom elicited a bunch of diverse answers. Like, another major retailer; a lot of small shops; a bookstore; a new City Hall; a homeless shelter.  None of these ideas made me go WOW! But that's what downtown needs, places that have a Wow Factor. We shouldn't be content with simply replacing Nordstrom with more of the same. This is an opportunity to refashion the…
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Posted inCity of Salem Creekside Golf Course Larry Tokarski

Larry Tokarski leaves the public with a $7.5 million development bill

It took me about two seconds to say "Yes" when the publisher of Salem Weekly, A.P. Walther, asked me via an email if I'd be interested in writing a story about the unbuilt section of Lone Oak Road that the City Council is asking the public to pay for, after the developer, Larry Tokarski, walked away from his obligation to make the road improvements. The front page story appeared in this week's issue of Salem Weekly. You can read it online. Here's a PDF file of the story as I sent it off to Walther. Download Salem Weekly Lone Oak…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

It’s time to be really scared about Trump

Reading "How Democracies Die" right now is akin to watching a scary movie at home by yourself, then hearing what sounds like footsteps in the kitchen. I'm terrified at what could happen, yet ignoring the danger isn't an option. The authors of How Democracies Die, Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, are Harvard professors who, according to the book jacket,  "have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America."  They consider that our American democracy is in danger -- from President Trump and his willing Republican co-conspirators. I've only finished three chapters of their…
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Posted inDowntown

Thirty great ideas for streetscaping downtown Salem

This afternoon I took part in the Trees and Landscaping Focus Group for the Downtown Streetscape Project. About 20 of us, citizens and consultants, had a spirited 90-minute discussion in the Library's Anderson Room about downtown trees and other vegetation, though the discussion also included broader Streetscape topics. Here's 30 great ideas generated by the Focus Group: (1) Eliminate a lane of traffic on some downtown streets with three or four lanes so there's more room for trees and people on the sidewalks. (2) Define the personality of both downtown and the entire city, then make Streetscape reflect that personality.…
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Posted inCity Council Larry Tokarski

Why did Larry Tokarski start, then stop, construction of Lone Oak Road?

Last Monday the Salem City Council voted 7-2 to form a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District that's supposedly needed to pay for a missing north and south section, plus a bridge over Jory Creek. I talked about this in "City Council poised to make public pay for improvements, not Larry Tokarski." Tokarski is the developer of Creekside, through which the north section of the so-far unbuilt Lone Oak Road would pass. The mystery is why Tokarski never was required to pay for that part of the road, plus the bridge over Jory Creek. He started construction of these improvements in…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Larry Tokarski

City Council poised to make public pay for improvements, not Larry Tokarski

Tonight the Salem City Council is having a public hearing on forming a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District in the Creekside area. Basically, as I understand it, a developer (Garrett and Alice Berndt) has requested that buyers and owners of lots in the area be saddled with a total of $7,347,000 in fees to pay for needed improvements to an extension of Lone Oak Road.  This is a complicated subject, and I don't pretend to be familiar with all of the details surrounding this issue, which has been festering for many years. Arguments have gone back and forth about who…
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