Salem

Citizens of Salem, Oregon, listen up! I have great news. Our city can become as cool as Des Moines, Iowa! Ah, I sense your lack of enthusiasm. Des Moines? That's our urban model? I'll pass on that. No, wait. Don't hang up on this blog post. You've got to read on. Because today I came across a Politico piece that made me feel way better about Salem's chances of breaking out of its reputation as the drab something-or-other between vibrant Portland and Eugene.  I urge you to read "How America's Dullest City Got Cool" in its entirety.  But if the lengthy…

This morning I went to City Hall and picked up a CD that contained public record documents I'd requested. It was a citizen activist pleasure to pay $24.43 to learn how much the City of Salem is paying the DLR Group for architectural services related to planning for a new police facility.  The answer is... $142,127 for the original contract signed in September 2015. See: Download 145145 Architectural Services for the Salem Police Facility Plus a possible $20,000 additional for analysis of a fourth police facility site (the original contract required analyses of just three sites). This is how much DLR…

Salem Community Vision has analyzed the four sites that were selected by a City Council subcommittee last month as the best possible locations for a new police facility. One by one, they posted "reviews" of each site on the Salem Community Vision Facebook page. Below I've shared the analyses all together -- putting the Clear Winner first.This is the location known as the O'Brien site, where several car dealerships used to be on the east side of Commercial just north of downtown. It was by far the highest ranked site using criteria developed by consultants and approved by the council…

Hard to believe. But I believe it. Because this fits with what I know about Salem Mayor Anna Peterson and her right-wing city council majority. Last night I attended a Progressive Salem meeting where someone said, "The Mayor thinks that people don't want change. They're happy with Salem as it is." Wow. This shows how out-of-touch with reality the folks currently in charge at City Hall are.  Ask homeless people if Salem is fine as it is.Ask people needing to ride a bus on weekends and evenings if Salem is fine as it is.Ask relatives of the eight pedestrians killed…

Do I have a New Year's wish for Salem, Oregon? Oh, yeah, I sure do. This long-time resident -- I've lived in and near Salem for 38 years -- hopes everybody in this town, but especially our Mayor, City Councilors, and other city officials, will become way more creative, inventive, and non-linear in their thinking about how to make our area better. For a great example of how things have gone wrong with prior assumptions that the future will, and should, be like the past, check out a recent Salem Breakfast on Bikes post: "Our Habits in Modeling and Overbuilding." …

Yesterday I'd just started riding my StreetStrider outdoor elliptical bike at Salem's rural'ish Minto Brown Island Park. Coming to a flooded area just west of Parking Lot 1, I saw a woman with her smartphone out, taking photos of an unexpected sight. Two swans.  I'd seen the swans a few days before, when I was riding at Riverfront Park. They were hanging out by the dock in the Willamette where the sternwheeler ties up. (I'm assuming these are the same swans, since until now I've never seen any swans out and about in the wild here in Salem.)Some kayakers were…

Well, after more than five years of planning -- much of it poorly done -- a Salem City Council subcommittee has selected four possible sites in this town where a new 150,000 sq. ft. police facility could be built.  This happened tonight at a meeting in a third-floor conference room at City Hall. I and some other members of the Salem Community Vision (SCV) steering committee attended the meeting, sporting purple stickers with the SCV position: $50 Million Police HQ & Seismic  Salem Community Vision has the answer to this question — a 75,000 square foot facility, 50% larger than the police facilities we have — with…

Going to a Salem City Council meeting isn't the most entertaining way to spend a Monday night. But for me these meetings are interesting on several different levels.  There's (1) what is going on between City officials and the public in the present moment, and also (2) how these interactions point to habitual ways of acting by the City Council -- which is sort of like Blake's "see the world in a grain of sand" notion. Last night the City Council -- which consists of Mayor Anna Peterson and eight city councilors -- voted to accept a recommendation by city…

Yesterday I heard from an advocate for Salem's homeless who asked me to publicize this important message: Advocate for low-income housing on Monday! The Salem Housing Advisory Committee is asking that the City set aside 25% of the repurposed State Hospital property for low income housing.  The Salem Housing Commission will receive this recommendation on Monday.  Date: 12/14/2015 Time: 6:30 PM -‎ 10:00 PM  (Housing is first hour or so of meeting)Location: City Hall, Council Chambers, Room 240. Let's show up en masse in the early part of the evening to support more low income housing in Salem.How about signs "Off our steps, off the streets-housing for the…

Baby boomer guy that I am, I'm old-fashioned when it comes to newspapers. Meaning, I still read them! My wife and I subscribe to the print versions of both the Salem Statesman Journal and the Portland Oregonian. I also have a digital subscription to the New York Times.  Given that I like newspapers, and have read one or more almost every day of my life, I've been saddened by how far down the Journalistic Quality mountain our home-town paper, the Gannett-owned Statesman Journal, has slid. I've written numerous criticisms of the newspaper on this blog. Type "Statesman Journal" into the…

I'd never compare the new Strange Up Salem logo to the Mona Lisa, but... No, wait! I would!  Art is art. Unless it isn't art. But clearly, this logo is. It is an original creation by Ryan James Rhoades of Salem's Reformation Designs. And moi. (Now that I am an artist of sorts, having collaborated with Ryan on the logo -- not to mention paying for it -- I am going to speak more French; but wear a beret? Non.) Regarding the Mona Lisa, imagine that it was possible to know what Leonardo da Vinci was thinking when he created…

Another day, another worrisome effort by City of Salem officials to demolish our town's history for no good reason.  Recently they overturned a Historic Landmarks Commission recommendation to preserve Howard Hall, the last remaining building on the School for the Blind property. Instead, the City Council voted to tear Howard Hall down. (So Salem Hospital could build an over-sized parking lot.) Now LeBreton Hall, a majestic 1908 structure that was one of the first to be built on the Fairview Training Center property (which used to be called the State Institution for the Feeble-Minded; we've made progress) is on the…

Last night my wife and I enjoyed an Enlightened Theatrics' musical show at Salem's downtown Grand Theatre just about as much as we liked a previous production, "Hair."  "The 1940's Radio Hour" is much different, of course -- a generation apart in setting. Which gave it much of its appeal. I was born in 1948. The Radio Hour show is set in 1942. When I first heard the name of this production, I thought, "That's ancient history, the 1940's; I'm not sure if I want to listen to old-folks music." But when I first heard a mention of 1942 from one…

I hate the illegal signs that have sprouted all over Salem on the public right of way. But today I, and some unknown other Fighter Against Urban Ugliness, struck blows against one of the worst offenders -- Kelly's Home Center. Turning from River Road into Minto Brown Island Park to exercise in the early afternoon, I saw three Kelly's "Big Sale" signs between the road and railroad tracks. This is one of them. Wanting to do my Streetstrider (outdoor elliptical bike) ride first, after I was done I vowed to walk from Parking Lot 1 up to the road and…

Often it's frustrating to live in Salem, Oregon. Nestled in an Uncool Zone between the more with-it towns of Portland and Eugene, our city officials are prone to archaic attitudes that belong more to 1955 than 2015. Case in point: Salem Mayor Anna Peterson believes that marijuana kills brain cells. If this were true it would be bad news for Oregonians, given that medical marijuana has been legal here since 1998, and adult/recreational use was legalized in 2014.  This is what Mayor Peterson said on a local conservative talk show. I'm frankly fed up. It's against the law federally. The science proves…

Like Topsy, a new police facility here in Salem, Oregon just keeps on growing. When it was first proposed by Mayor Anna Peterson and her staff, a 75,000 square foot replacement for the current 48,000 sq. ft. police department was in the works. Now, consultants have recommended a 148,000 sq. ft. facility -- almost twice as large.  I don't want to get much into the tangled web of how planning for this new police facility has unfolded over the past five years. For the next few weeks, you can read all about it on this Salem Community Vision web page.…

This weekend my wife and I made a quick trip to Olympia, Washington. Well, our focus was Lacey, a smaller town adjacent to Olympia -- sort of comparable to Salem and Keizer, I guess. Laurel and I went to take a look at Panorama, a retirement community in Lacey. But that isn't my focus in this post.  Rather, I want to share some impressions of Olympia -- which is, of course, Washington's capital, just as Salem is the capital of Oregon.  Olympia is quite a bit smaller, about 50,000 population versus Salem's 160,000. But the population of the urban area…

Salem, Oregon is steadily strengthening its reputation as the city where public officials are either incompetent or uncaring when it comes to our trees.  Today I talked with an anonymous reputable source (love that term! makes me sound like an investigative blogger!) who told me some disturbing tales about the black walnut trees being cut down on the State Hospital campus.  A black walnut tree Here's an excerpt from a recent Statesman Journal story by Tracy Loew, "Historic Salem trees felled due to new disease." Six century-old black walnut trees on the Oregon State Hospital campus are being felled this week due to…