Posted inSalem

“Trust us” says Salem’s right-wing City Council. “Why?” ask citizens.

As the saying goes, there can be a universe in a grain of sand. Likewise, those attending last night's Salem City Council meeting got insights into how things at City Hall are generally going. In short: not well. Not for those of us concerned about government transparency, trust, and citizen participation. The three go together. Transparency. Trust. Citizen participation. For example, when people feel like the Mayor, city councilors, and other officials are being open and honest with them, trust is fostered. When people trust that what they say will be listened to, and can make a difference, they're more…
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Posted inSalem

The Salem City Council accuses me of misinformation — I call them out on this

It's late. I'm tired. But I have to defend myself against the untrue accusations Salem city councilor Brad Nanke, and other officials, made about me tonight. Not long ago I got back from a fascinating Salem City Council meeting. (Check out the KGW-TV story about this that was on the 5 pm news. I was interviewed, but, sob, I was identified as "Dan Atchison, City Attorney." As was the real Dan Atchison, who also was interviewed. My reputation is now ruined! I considered suing KGW, but I think that instead I'll ask them for an ounce of free weed. The…
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Posted inSalem

Salem has a new City Manager — Steve Powers

It looks like Salem, Oregon has a new City Manager, Steve Powers. He's currently the City Administrator of Ann Arbor, Michigan.  So reports MLive (whatever that is) in "Ann Arbor city administrator accepts new job in Oregon." City Administrator Steve Powers is planning to leave the city of Ann Arbor to pursue a new career opportunity in Oregon. Powers, who has been Ann Arbor's top administrator since 2011, informed the City Council of his decision via email late Sunday afternoon. He has been offered the city manager position in Salem, Oregon, and he has accepted pending the Salem City Council approving…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana Salem

Salem City Council might ban marijuana sales — secretly

News flash: without any warning to Salem's citizens, the City Council might move to ban recreational marijuana sales at its Monday (August 31) meeting.  Here's a PDF version of this flyer; feel free to share far and wide Download Hey Salem PDF I find this outrageous, like so much the Mayor and right-wing council majority is doing these days. My outrage is as much about the disturbing lack of public notice and transparency going on here, as the absurd notion that recreational marijuana sales should be banned in a city whose citizens approved Measure 91 by 53% to 47% in…
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Posted inBicycling Salem

What I like most about cycling at a Portland Sunday Parkways event

Yesterday I took part in my second Portland Sunday Parkways bike ride. After my first experience, I wrote "What Salem Sunday Streets can learn from Portland Sunday Parkways."  Now that I've been to two Portland Sunday Parkways, I've got a better understanding of what I like about these open streets events, where 7-8 miles of streets in various parts of Portland are completely closed off to moving vehicles. People cycle, scoot, skateboard, walk, or whatever along the route, which leads to several public parks where booths and activities abound. After driving up from Salem, my Bike Friday folding bike ("Silkie,"…
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Posted inSalem

Cycling in Salem got good news, but we’re a long ways from being pedal-friendly

Way to go, Salem Bike Boulevard Advocates! Without you pushing for Family Friendly Bikeways in this town, of which we currently have exactly none, there wouldn't have been this good news that you shared today on your Facebook page. We have great news to share with you this morning. The City of Salem has been awarded an ODOT TGM grant to begin the planning stages of the Winter-Maple Family Friendly Bikeway! What does this mean? It means that Salem will receive $110,000 from ODOT along with a $30,000 match from the City to plan a safe and convenient route.  TGM…
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Posted inSalem

A Salemian’s joys and sorrows of seeing a show in Portland

Last night my wife and I journeyed up I-5 from Salem to Portland to see the musical Wicked. We loved the show. But that's not what I want to talk about.  Rather, I was struck by how different an experience it was to see a top-notch musical in Portland, Wicked, compared to our seeing the Enlightened Theatrics performance of Hair in Salem a few weeks previous -- which also seemed to be Broadway-quality.  I came away feeling that there is a lot to like -- a LOT -- about what Salem, typically viewed as Portland's much less cool sister city…
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Posted inRecreation Salem

My brush with death from a feral chicken attack at Minto Brown Park

Life feels sweet after narrowly escaping three dangerous genetic relatives of Tyrannosaurus rex, a.k.a. "chickens" in modern parlance, at Salem's Minto Brown Island Park today. I'll share some photos of the attack, but these only reflect the objective state of the photons that made it into my iPhone's camera lens. My intuitive life-loving emotional mind saw these vicious animals differently. As miniature Velociraptors. After all, I had no idea if they'd gone completely feral, returning to the primitive instincts of their dinosaur ancestry.  In case other people who use the rural'ish Minto Brown trails come across these monsters, I'll describe the birds'…
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Posted inSalem

Sadly, the vision of Salem’s Sustainable Fairview has been much diluted

Back in January 2003 I wrote my first blog post about Sustainable Fairview, 275 acres in Salem, Oregon that previously was the site of the Fairview Training Center -- a facility for people with developmental disabilities. In that post I included a document that summarized the vision for Sustainable Fairview. Here's an excerpt: Download Fairview summary For almost 100 years Fairview functioned as a self-sustaining community, as the State of Oregon's primary facility for developmentally disabled children. It provided housing and services and produced its own food and energy. Including the careful restoration of historic buildings and the integration of…
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Posted inEntertainment Salem

Enlightened Theatrics’ Hair production made me feel “the 60’s are still real”

I've never enjoyed live theatre more than Enlightened Theatrics' production of Hair my wife and I saw last night at Salem's Grand Theatre.  And that isn't the cannabis talking. Well, let's make that it isn't just the cannabis talking. Hey, it seemed oh-so-appropriate to celebrate a paean to 60's hippiedom with some of Oregon's newly-legal recreational marijuana. Which, in a non-roundabout way, brings me to the Numero Uno reason I felt so good during and after this marvelous production of Hair: The talented directors and performers made me realize The '60s are still real.  Meaning, it isn't only that the…
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Posted inSalem

Enlightened Theatrics block party rocks downtown Salem (I’ve got photos!)

The folks who bought the Grand Theatre are bringing new energy and creativity to downtown Salem. Thank you, members of the Meduri family! I thoroughly enjoyed the Enlightened Theatrics block party you put on today, using a closed-off block of High Street in front of the theatre. Ah, these barricades were a beautiful sight. I hope we see more of them. Downtown Salem would benefit from more two-way, two-lane streets instead of the one-way, three-lane streets that make it difficult for pedestrians and cyclists to enjoy the Historic Area.  Closing off streets for special events like this one shows residents the…
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Posted inSalem

What Salem Sunday Streets can learn from Portland Sunday Parkways

I've enjoyed the first two Salem Sunday Streets events here in Salem, Oregon. But after attending a Portland Sunday Parkways event last Sunday, I realized that Salem has a lot to learn from how the Cooler City to our north does its "open streets" thing. For those not in the know, here's a description of what the Open Streets movement is all about: Open streets initiatives temporarily close streets to automobile traffic, so that people may use them for walking, bicycling, dancing, playing, and socializing. Note the words, so that people may use them -- streets.  Portland holds true to this.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

All newspapers, including the Statesman Journal, should have a public editor

So it's big news today that the nation's leading newspaper, the New York Times, screwed up big time on a story about a supposed criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails when she was Secretary of State.  Newsweek reports on the story behind the flawed story in "How the New York Times Bungled the Hillary Clinton Emails Story." In our hyper-partisan world, many people will not care about the truth here. That the Times story is false in almost every particular—down to the level of who wrote what memo—will only lead to accusations that people trying to set the record straight are pro-Hillary.…
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Posted inSalem

Sun-lit photos of 2015 Salem Art Fair

Per usual, this year Laurel and I went to the three-day Salem Art Fair on Friday -- with an evening return trip on Saturday to see a musical group. It was pleasingly warm and sunny. We hear gripes from some Art Fair traditionalists about the current $5 admission charge, which necessitates a temporary chain-link fence around the fair. Sure, I understand the concern about keeping citizens out of a public park for several days a year. But we don't mind paying the five bucks, and equally understand why the Salem Art Association feels the need to charge this. Perhaps because…
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Posted inSalem

Statesman Journal excited about being #2 paper in Oregon! Out of three…

Being a frequent loud-mouthed critic of Salem's newspaper, the Statesman Journal -- hey, I've got to spend my retired years doing something fun -- naturally my eye was caught by today's story, "SJ wins top awards for web excellence." The Statesman Journal digital staff won first place for Best Overall Website and Best Web Design. Actually, the Statesman Journal web site sucks. At least in comparison to truly well-designed sites like the New York Times, a point I was pleased to make back in 2014 with "Ugh! My review of new Statesman Journal web site." I had high hopes for the…
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Posted inSalem

City of Salem and Salem Hospital embrace corporate cronyism

If anyone doubts that top officials in Salem's City Hall -- notably including Mayor Peterson and a right-wing City Council majority -- are committed to kissing up to narrow special interests rather than the broad public interest, consider this: Here's how the City's top legal guy reacted to the news that the Oregon Court of Appeals gave a big smackdown to an ill-considered variance for a Salem Hospital parking lot that gave this large corporation more parking spaces that it was entitled to, and permission to cut down more large beautiful trees than it needed to. City Attorney Dan Atchison…
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Posted inSalem

People of Pacific Northwest: be scared, very scared. The Big One is coming.

If you live in Oregon, Washington, northern California, or British Columbia, you MUST do this -- read a scarily truthful story in The New Yorker, "The Really Big One: an earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest; the question is when. Kathryn Schulz wrote the piece beautifully. Like everybody who writes for The New Yorker, she has a marvelous way of putting words together. In this case, to describe how everything west of the Cascades is going to fall apart when the Big One, or the Really Big One, strikes. By the time the shaking has ceased…
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Posted inReligion Salem

Statesman Journal should stop publishing idiotic letters from Christian fanatics

There's many things that irritate me about Salem, Oregon's newspaper, the Statesman Journal.  For some, see "Maybe it's time for the Statesman Journal to die." In that post, though, I didn't mention how annoying the frequent letters to the editor from local Christian fundamentalists are.  I have no idea why they're published. Opinions should be based on facts. But by definition, Christianity is based on faith. There's zero factual evidence that the Christian god exists, or that Jesus was the son of this imaginary god. I can understand how people can have opinions based on misunderstood facts, such as the…
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Posted inSalem

Salem Mayor Anna Peterson unduly proud of her “collaboration capital”

Anna Peterson is the Mayor of Salem, Oregon's capital. She is really fond of calling this town the "collaboration capital."  I counted up 11 times collaboration was used in Peterson's 2013 State of the City speech. Just about every time I hear her talk, she manages to squeeze in "collaboration capital." What does this really mean, though? Everybody collaborates. Everybody cooperates. (The two words are basically synonymous.) We humans are social animals. We flock together. We work together. We aren't lone wolves. Of course, wolves aren't alone either. They too collaborate and cooperate. So why is Mayor Peterson making such a…
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Posted inSalem

Bikes, beer, and food carts — what the town of Sisters can teach Salem

I love the central Oregon town of Sisters. I've written about it in "How Sisters, Oregon became a charming prosperous town" and "Camp Sherman and Sisters: I love these Oregon towns." Now, there's only a few thousand people in the city limits of Sisters, while Salem, my home town, has a population of about 160,000. As noted in one of my previous posts, Sisters was centrally planned to have an 1880's Western theme. Salem has pretty much just grown, and suffers from a lack of smart urban design. Every time I visit Sisters, I think "This town has a lot…
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