Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Salem City Councilor Warren Bednarz accused of ethics violations

Over on my new Salem Political Snark blog I've put up a post about two complaints that have been filed with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission against Warren Bednarz, a city councilor.  Check out "City Councilor Warren Bednarz hit with ethics complaints."  Both relate to Bednarz' failure to declare a conflict of interest when he voted on motions before the City Council that would financially benefit members of his family. After a preliminary review of the first complaint, it was considered serious enough by Commission staff to warrant an investigation by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. ...The second ethics complaint is…
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Posted inBicycling Salem

Salem is scary for pedestrians. Hydraulic autoism has to end.

One brief near-encounter with a clueless driver spoke volumes to me about what needs to change if downtown Salem -- and the rest of this town -- is to become friendly to walkers and cyclists. I'd left my Tai Chi class at Pacific Martial Arts, above Court Street's Dairy Lunch restaurant. Heading to my parked car, I stepped onto the clearly-marked mid-block crossing that connects two alleys. Court Street has three lanes. Stepping into the crosswalk near the left side of the street, I had to stop suddenly when a driver zoomed by close to me, heedless of the fact…
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Posted inSalem

Snarky post about City of Salem earthquake preparedness stupidity

Another day, another post on my new Salem Political Snark blog: "City of Salem officials acting stupid on earthquake safety." It starts out with... Gosh, maybe this is too radical an idea for Salem's Mayor and City Council, but it sure seems like a "Public Safety" bond voters will be asked to approve in the November election should actually keep the public safe -- rather than being a massive waste of taxpayer money to build an overpriced Police Palace. A few years ago our sometimes-wise City officials recognized a scary truth: City Hall and the Library are almost surely going to collapse…
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Posted inSalem

Salem Political Snark — my new blog passion

Political junkie that I am, the notion of having a purely political blog has rattled around in my old-man mind for a while.  When the name Salem Political Snark joined the rattling mental clutter, I thought DAMN, GOT TO DO IT! So, I have. Here's the clickable links for the JPEG image above.  Blog: salempoliticalsnark.comFacebook page: Salem Political Snark ("Like" it, please, please, please)Twitter feed: @SnarkySalem Spread the word about Salem Political Snark.  I'm not doing this just because it is election season. Local politicians and public officials are always doing sleazy stuff, so I'm not worrying about running out of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Progressive Salem should endorse Carole Smith for Mayor

I'm a proud member of Progressive Salem, an organization out to get progressive candidates elected to local offices. But I disagree with the board of directors' decision to stay neutral in the upcoming Mayor's race. Of the two candidates, Carole Smith and Chuck Bennett, Smith clearly seems to be the most progressive. (I couldn't find a web site for Bennett.) I say this for some good reasons.  (1) Tom Andersen being on the short side of 8-1 votes. Chuck Bennett currently is a Salem City Council member who represents Ward 1, the downtown area. Tom Andersen was elected to the City…
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Posted inSalem

T.J. Sullivan misinforms about Salem police facility “misinformation”

Ah, George Orwell would be so happy with T.J. Sullivan, a Chamber of Commerce mouthpiece who was selected in 2014 by Mayor Anna Peterson to chair the Blue Ribbon (is there any other color?) Task Force on the Police Facility. "Doublespeak," says Wikipedia, is a close relative of Orwell's "doublethink," a central concept in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four book. Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs, "servicing the target" for bombing), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Open letter to Oregon’s governor from a pissed-off wolf advocate

Dear Governor Kate Brown,  You made a big mistake when you signed anti-wolf House Bill 4040 not long ago. I'm a proud progressive who is deeply irritated by this, notwithstanding my agreement with you on many other issues. Oregon Wild says: I am sad to report that Monday night, Governor Kate Brown signed HB 4040. This bill shielded the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife from public scrutiny and judicial review of their decision to strip endangered species protections from Oregon’s gray wolves. There was no signing ceremony. There were no smiling politicians or stakeholders standing behind the Governor as…
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Posted inSalem

Downtown Salem skybridges and streetscaping

Are the skybridges good or bad for downtown? That's a simplistic question. Like most things in life, the answer is, "They're both good and bad."  But streetscaping Salem's Historic District -- making the streets and sidewalks much more pedestrian and cyclist-friendly -- that's pretty much an All Good in my opinion. The Salem Breakfast on Bikes blog has an interesting post, "Skybridges as Pedestrian Displacement Systems: Shelter, but anti-Sidewalk." But another ingredient in the lack of foot traffic is the way the skybridges here suck people, energy, and life off of the street-level sidewalks and reinforce the blank walls and…
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Posted inSalem

Key downtown question: “Why can’t Salem get its act together?”

The title of this post captures a core theme of the conversation I had yesterday with John Southgate, a Portland consultant highly knowledgeable about downtown revitalization.  Along with Public Affairs Counsel staff, Southgate did most of the writing and research for the Salem 2025 report that I blogged about recently. I've since learned, by the way, that Salem businessman Larry Tokarski commissioned the Salem 2025 study, a fact not mentioned in the report. Why can't Salem get its act together?  The Salem 2025 report points to the same question in various ways. Here's some quotes: -- ...it is clear that…
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Posted inSalem

Take the City of Salem police facility survey. You could save lives.

The City of Salem has put up a Survey Monkey poll about the proposed $80 million, 150,000 square foot police facility -- which is vastly overpriced, threatens the vitalization of downtown, and has sucked up money needed to make the Library and City Hall earthquake-ready. (If the link to the Survey Monkey poll doesn't work for some reason, head to the City's "New Police Facility" page; click on community survey in the fifth paragraph.) It is REALLY important that as many people as possible take the survey. Two questions are especially crucial. Here's my highly informed opinion about how you…
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Posted inSalem

Salem police facility could waste $20 million of downtown urban renewal funds

So, fellow citizens of Salem, do you agree with me about this? Making downtown more attractive, people-friendly, and economically vibrant is a way better use for $20 million in urban renewal funds than using that money to subsidize a supersized, overly expensive new police facility. Most people in this town would emphatically answer "Yes!"  Unfortunately, today the City's Urban Development Director, Kristin Retherford, said at a Salem City Watch meeting that $10 million to $20 million of urban renewal funds might be used to finance construction of a vastly over-priced $80 million police facility on the old O'Brien Auto Group site just…
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Posted inSalem

Semi-mysterious “Salem 2025” report looks at future of downtown

What needs to be done to make downtown Salem (Oregon) more vibrant? Great question.  Yesterday I learned about a rather mysterious "Salem 2025" report prepared by John Southgate Consulting and Public Affairs Counsel, a Salem-based government affairs firm headed by Mark Nelson, described as "Oregon’s leading business lobbyist and political strategist." Download Salem 2025 Report I call the Salem 2025 report mysterious because it is dated December 2015, yet when I queried the Great God Google there was no online mention of it. Also, Salem 2025 doesn't indicate who initiated and paid for the report. This morning I phoned the Public Affairs Counsel…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Why Gov. Brown should veto the horrible Oregon wolf bill, HB 4040

A lot of Democrats/progressives in Oregon consider the just-completed 2016 legislative session to have been a success. But in my view the passage of HB 4040, which aligns our state with science-denying, anti-environment right-wing extremism that I'd hoped would be confined to Congressional craziness, is a huge negative that takes away from the positive steps taken: increasing Oregon's minimum wage, eliminating coal as an energy source, promoting more affordable housing. Here's how the Center for Biological Diversity describes the bill, which awaits Governor Brown's signature. The Oregon Legislature passed a bill tonight ratifying the delisting of wolves in Oregon and…
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Posted inSalem

Salem Mayor Anna Peterson’s history of conflict with citizens

When I started to get involved in City of Salem issues back in 2013, I was immediately struck by how top City officials didn't care about what citizens had to say. Their disdain for public participation in policy-making was obvious. Since, I've heard lots of people express the same frustration: during the reign of Queen Mayor Anna Peterson (2011-2016), City Hall has been run in a highly top-down fashion. Decisions are made behind closed doors, then attempts are made to foist a fait accompli onto citizens by their so-called "public servants." Not surprisingly, this results in a lot of controversy rather…
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Posted inSalem

A Moral Must: make Salem’s Library and City Hall earthquake-ready

I have a new citizen activist obsession: Doing everything I can, from now until it happens, to convince Salem's Mayor, City Manager, city councilors, and general citizenry that making the Civic Center buildings earthquake-ready is a moral necessity. For several years I and others have been advocating this. See: "Earthquake readiness: will the Salem City Council choose to save lives?""Salem citizens: save lives by sending an email to the City Council""Why a new Salem police facility could cost many lives""Open letter to Salem's Police Facility Task Force" But today I went over an earthquake-readiness tipping point after looking over a…
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Posted inSalem

Cara Kaser will be a great Salem city councilor

I just got home from a fund-raiser for Cara Kaser that was held at the south Salem McMenamins. I'm flying high on visions of what a great city councilor she will be -- and that's not the Terminator Stout talking (well, maybe just a little bit). Kaser is seeking to be elected to the Salem City Council Ward 1 seat -- which currently is occupied by Chuck Bennett, who is running for Mayor. The fund-raiser was organized by Scott Bassett, who is known throughout the universe as being McMenamins #1 "Cosmic Tripster." Since, Bassett has done the Cosmic Tripster thing…
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