Investigative blogger that I am, it gives me great pride to share the results of my non-award-winning research into how officials at the City of Salem (Oregon) spent five years secretively planning a $70 million — now $80 million — new police facility, along with renovations to the Civic Center.
Citizen involvement in all this by, you know, those people who pay the bills for spendy government projects, was virtually zero. Nil. Nada. Zilch.
Tomorrow (Tuesday, January 28) Salem Community Vision will hold a community forum on this project at the Grand Theatre in downtown. Time: 7 – 8:30 pm. Yeah, same evening as State of the Union address. Record Obama's speech and engage in some local policy talk.
Which won't include a 5-minute presentation by me on citizen involvement in the Police Facility/Civic Center project, largely regarding the lack thereof, which was on the agenda for a few days, before I was taken off the program.
But do not despair, fans of my rants carefully measured criticisms of how City Manager Linda Norris, Mayor Anna Peterson, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez, and other city officials are going about their business these days.
Before I was dropped from the program, I prepared a draft of my talk.
Download Notes for presentation PDF
I even sat cross-legged on the floor, iPhone timer in my lap, repeatedly reading it to make it come out to almost exactly 5 minutes. Though, in my grandiose mind, I was concerned about how much repeated bouts of thunderous applause would cut into my speaking time.
You can read my brilliant what-could-have-been oratory by clicking on the link above. I'll also copy in my talk as a continuation to this post.
Note: the opinions expressed in the "Notes for presentation" do not necessarily represent the attitude of all Salem Community Vision members. I am just one member of the group, and a strong supporter of Salem Community Vision goals, being one of the people who got it going. But on some subjects I haven't, and won't, agree with what the group as a whole decides. That's the nature of all groups, really: a big tent shelters all sorts of people.
What's important here is my well-documented conclusion in my proposed talk: Citizen involvement should happen often and early on in governmental policy-making, especially with large, costly, controversial projects.
Not rarely and late, as the community-involvement-phobic planners of this project have acted. I keep hearing how the current leadership of the City of Salem is the most secretive and least collaborative of any administration in many, many years.
What I wrote supports this.
I also will share background notes concerning this project that I put together, mostly from newspaper stories, before composing the 5 minute talk. Facts and direct quotes speak loudly.
Download Timeline of events PDF
Feel free to adapt my talk into other creative forms.
I could easily see what I wrote as being adapted into a mime act — I picture the oft-seen mime scene of being pressed against a glass surface, trying to find a way in, while city officials busily plan their $70 million project behind closed doors.
It also could be re-written to be an elementary school play, though I fear this could discourage impressionable young minds from ever becoming involved in civic issues.
Being a book author who has accumulated countless rejection letters from publishers and agents who didn't recognize my obvious creative genius, and having blogged about how I embrace my inner Anguished Artist (while damning the fools at the Statesman Journal who pick amateur Oregon State Fair photos to print in the paper), I look upon this on-the-agenda, off-the-agenda experience as part of my personal growth.
It also will give me something to talk about if I ever join a Tortured Artist support group. Here's my marvelous composition:
5