Salem

Kudos to the Salem women who are working to get portable toilets with an artistic flair installed in the downtown area. A story by Helen Caswell in the June 11 issue of Salem Weekly, "Let's get the pottie started!" tells the got-to-go tale. A diverse group of women have an inspired solution to the problem of public defecation in the downtown Salem core. Their goal is to involve the community in a positive way and provide portable toilets, “arta potties,” decorated with unique Salem-inspired art, in the seven blocks of downtown. They believe this approach, unique to the US, could…

Today the Statesman Journal ran a front page story, "Salem considers Urban Tree Commission to protect street trees."  Download Salem considers Urban Tree Commission to protect street treesI liked the ending of Brandon Southward's piece. The council appeared paralyzed about the issue at its June 8 meeting; councilors declined to vote on the creation of an Urban Tree Commission. Instead, they set a tentative September date for a public hearing. In the interim, city staff will begin a public outreach campaign, which will include meeting with neighborhood associations. The public might not need much outreach, as numerous citizens expressed support…

Welcome aboard the S.S. Salem Strange, Statesman Journal newspaper. You're late to the cruise, but it's good to see the paper finally sailing along with me and the many others who want to see this town set a course for Cool. Embedded in a story by Tom Rastrelli, "What are Salem residents called? Governor, do you know?," we learned that Rastrelli will be writing regularly on a Keep Salem Weirder theme. Download What are Salem residents called? Governor, do you know? "Keep Salem Weirder" will explore the unique culture of Salem and the Mid-Valley. If you know of a quirky…

So, when will Salem's War on Trees end? This is a town where City officials allow trees to be killed for no good reason. And where private organizations, knowing this, push tree-destruction to the legal limit and beyond. The most recent victim of Salem's horrific tree policies is a majestic White Oak that was supposed to be the centerpiece of Salem Hospital's new parking lot.  Here it is, being cut down. This photo comes from the Facebook page of Elwood's Tree Service. Elwood runs a great company. He cares deeply about this town's trees. He wouldn't cut down a tree…

In case you missed my Strange Up Salem Facebook post about Mayor Anna Peterson's irritated reaction to my oh-so-truthful testimony about the disgraceful 2013 U.S. Bank tree removals, here's a video of yesterday's City Council meeting.  (If you're a Facebooker, give Strange Up Salem a "like" if you want to get my marvelous observations about this town.) My testimony during the public comment starts at about 32:25 minutes in and continues to about the 45 minute mark. (Click here to go to the You Tube video and have it start at that point. I only got three minutes to speak; questions…

Here's testimony about the Urban Tree Commission agenda item for tomorrow's Salem City Council meeting that I just emailed to the Mayor and City Council. A few days ago I wrote another blog post on this subject, "Tell the Salem City Council we need an Urban Tree Commission." Well, I've followed my advice. I owe it to the beautiful U.S. Bank Trees, which were cut down for no good reason. Dear Mayor and City Councilors, In addition to the emailed testimony I sent you on behalf of Salem Community Vision supporting an Urban Tree Commission and bringing forward to a…

Salem's citizens love their trees. But many people, including me, have been deeply disturbed by how City officials have removed large, healthy, beautiful downtown trees for no good reason. Meaning, against the advice of independent expert arborists and even the City's own urban forester. I documented the debacle of the needless 2013 destruction of five Japanese Zelkovas on State Street in a tell-all report, "Outrage: Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings." Download Outrage Report It was deeply disturbing for tree lovers to see this... Turned into this... The tree removals happened because a City ordinance allowed one person to make the…

Because I've written a lot of blog posts about Salem, quite a few of them critical, among some people I've got an undeserved reputation as a Salem-hater. Actually, I love this town.  Below I've shared recent emails I've gotten from two people interested in possibly relocating to Oregon, along with my reply. You can see that I'm positive about Salem -- which fits with me having happily lived in and near Salem for 37 years. My attitude is similar to how I felt when told in the 1960's "Love it or leave it, hippie!" I'd think, "Hey, I can not…

Given the many unmet needs here in Salem, Oregon, it's easy to visualize lots of ways to spend $50 million. Which happens to be how much City officials have said a new police facility could cost (though they're now backing away from that estimate, probably because they want an even more lavish police facility). For example, I recently went on a bicycle tour of Portland's vaunted neighborhood greenways. These are streets that have been renovated in various ways to make them more biking and pedestrian friendly/safer. The cost per mile is about $250,000.  Salem currently has zero neighborhood greenways. Portland…

Another sad day for tree lovers here in Salem, Oregon -- the city that hangs a new Tree City USA banner in its city council chambers one day a year, then trashes trees the rest of the time.  Today these beautiful trees on High Street, just south of the Elsinore Theatre, were chopped down. The area in front of the DaVinci restaurant and Croissant & Co. now looks like this: I have no idea why the owner of the Ira's Alley building would want to uglify the streetscape by cutting down trees for no good reason. I can use those…

Why would anyone not want to save lives of people who are at Salem's City Hall and Library when (not if) the "Big One" earthquake hits? Great question.  Citizens need to keep asking it, now that Salem Mayor Anna Peterson's hand-picked Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Police Facility has recommended that seismic upgrades to the Civic Center aren't necessary to pursue right now.  Maybe mañana. Or the day, year, decade, or whatever after that. After all, it's just precious human lives at stake here.  Many thousands of lives have been lost in Nepal recently after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake…

Everybody knows that daily newspapers are in trouble. Declining readership and shrinking advertising revenue are causing layoffs, along with stimulating papers to redefine their journalistic mission in an increasingly online world. That 2014 piece is pretty amazing: Here’s a quick reminder that, despite the upbeat story lines we’ve heard about the greater media business during the past year or so, most newspapers are still very much in free fall. At the American Enterprise Institute’s Carpe Diem blog, Mark J. Perry finds that print ad revenues are now the lowest they've been since 1950, when the Newspaper Association of America began tracking industry…

Collector's Item alert! The issue of Salem Weekly that hit the streets yesterday contains my final Strange Up Salem column, "Time to take back this town." So be sure to pick up an issue. Then put it in a safety deposit box. Given its historical significance, I predict that over time the current face value of the issue -- FREE -- will become, um, well, got to be honest here... still FREE. Hey, it's not about the money. For the past two years I've been pleased to write my Strange Up Salem column for the princely payment of nothing. This…