Hinessight

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…