Posted inSalem

New City of Salem “corporate welfare” giveaway to Mountain West Investment

Tonight the Salem City Council, in its Urban Renewal Agency guise, is going to decide whether to spend $200,000 to investigate possible pollution on private property that might affect a planned expansion of Riverfront Park. Download New environmental tests loom for Riverfront park land During environmental investigations related to the city's planned purchase of 3.8 acres at the former Boise Cascade site, a long-forgotten pipeline was found. The pipe, a remnant of a paper manufacturing operation's bleach plant, has raised environmental questions. Those questions will need to be answered before the city attempts to expand Riverfront Park. John Wales, the…
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Posted inSalem

Video of zany marching band at 2014 Salem Sunday Streets

I loved today's second annual Salem Sunday Streets. Soon I'll share photos and some commentary on the way-fun event in another post. Here's a preview. That's our dog, ZuZu, in front! For now, enjoy my iPhone video of the astoundingly entertaining MarchFourth Marching Band from Portland, Oregon. The stiltdancers... amazing.  
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s downtown parking debate: a view from Carole Smith

In my last Strange Up Salem column in Salem Weekly about downtown parking, I asked a simple question, "Can we all get along?" Great question, Rodney King. Police brutality isn’t the same as heated debates over how to handle downtown parking, but the unnecessary fighting over this issue also is bothersome. At its last meeting the city council initiated the return of a 3-hour time limit even though discussion of downtown parking was billed as “informational” on the agenda, with no action expected. Yet without advance notice a motion suddenly appeared and was quickly passed unanimously. This violated the spirit,…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

“Oregon Marijuana Education Tour” coming to Salem area under cloud of scandal

When I first learned about the so-called Oregon Marijuana Education Tour, it sounded like what I now know it really is: a thinly-disguised political campaign against Measure 91 -- which will legalize recreational marijuana in this state if voters approve the citizen initiative in November.  Today Oregon Represenative Earl Blumenauer called for a federal investigation "to determine if federal taxpayer dollars are being used illegally to influence a statewide election." His letter to federal authorities is here. Links to backup documents are here. This is a big deal. Portland's Russ Belville, a.k.a. Radical Russ, has done some great reporting on…
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Posted inSalem

Save ancient trees and Howard Hall from Salem Hospital’s greed

Let's understand one thing about Salem Hospital: it is the biggest part of a giant corporation, not a small community health care provider. The revenue of Salem Health, its parent organization, was over $500 million a few years ago. It's CEO, Norm Gruber, is said to make over a million dollars a year now. He made $877,000 in 2011.  So this is one reason I'm rooting for an elderly blind woman, Beverly Rushing, who is going up against Salem Hospital in her appeal of the City of Salem's outrageous approval of the hospital's plan to needlessly cut down thirty majestic…
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s downtown parking scandal (PG, like Salem)

Don't get me wrong. I prefer clean government to dirty government. But if we're going to have scandals here in Salem, it'd be cool to have R- or X-rated House of Cards'ish ones, big elaborate devious mischievous goings-on led by Machiavellian politicians and their cohorts who are so clever, it takes an equally strong dose of investigative prowess to get even a clue into what's happening behind the scenes. Instead, what's happening with the latest episode of the downtown parking saga is sleazy and disturbing, yet seemingly pretty damn obvious to discern. Hence, this scandal is fittingly Salem. More So-lame…
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Posted inSalem

2014 Salem Sunday Streets: different, yet probably better

I hugely enjoyed the 2013 Salem Sunday Streets event, our town's first version of the much more expansive car-free ciclovias pioneered by Gil Peñalosa, the executive director of 8-80 Cities, who got this going in Bogota, Columbia with great success and now is preaching the cilclovia gospel around the world. “Streets are like a forbidden place,” Peñalosa says. “Almost nothing scares you as much as when your parents say ‘Watch out! A car is coming!’” But with the ciclovía, the streets “become open so people can enjoy the forbidden place.” In Bogotá, the ciclovía is used to promote public health: exercise classes…
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Posted inEntertainment

2014. Still no Pac-12 Network on DirecTV. Am I an idiot to renew?

As I begin to write this post, the Oregon-South Dakota game -- kicking off the 2014 season for the Ducks -- will begin in nine minutes. I won't be watching it because of two goddamn corporate assholes. I live in the boonies of rural south Salem, 20 minutes from a sports bar. I have DirecTV, which is still in a three year long pissing match with the Pac 12 Network, with both sides throwing insults at each other (see preceding links). So I'll be listening to the Ducks game on the radio. Sure, the nailbiter in this mis-matchup will be…
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Posted inSkateboarding

Dude! I’m featured by NW Skate Coalition!

Googling myself today, one of my favorite self-absorbed activities, I came across a profile of a 65 year old longboarder/skateboarder on the NW Skate Coalition web site.  ME, ME, ME! Several months ago Cory Poole took some photos of me doing my land paddling thing at Minto Brown Park, and asked some questions about why I enjoy senior citizen skateboarding. The story was told earlier this month. NWSC Rider Profile Location: Salem Oregon Rider: Brian Hines Age:65 Ride: Longboard Larry Walkabout with Kahuna Big Stick Occupation: Writer / Blogger Why do you skate? Brian: I use it for exercise. How…
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Posted inSalem

Salem City Council pulls an OMG! downtown parking surprise

End of August. Time to relax. Lay back. Soak up the remaining summer sun. Let the living be easy.  But this isn't possible when you care about open government and the vitality of downtown Salem, and the City Council is up to its usual irritating closed-door, backroom, Machiavellian shenanigans. Damn them! I was all set to wash our deck today in preparation for re-staining it. However, I ended up emailing and phoning, trying to learn how a series of OMG's transpired at last night's City Council meeting.  I'll trace the Oh my God's backwards from the final one. I didn't attend the…
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Posted inHumor Salem

Comic says “Money doesn’t influence anyone.” Funny!

I love Pearls Before Swine's often caustic and cynical humor. Yesterday the comic strip featured Stephen Pastis' take on the Supreme Court's absurd contention that... "Spending large sums of money in connection with elections... does not give rise to quid pro quo corruption." Yeah, right.  In seven panels Pastis destroyed this argument. (click to enlarge) Of course, this crap also is going on right here in semi-sleepy Salem, Oregon. Wasn't long ago that I blogged about "Salem Chamber of Commerce tries to buy City Council seats." 
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Posted inSalem Strange Up Salem

At Salem’s French Press, a tale of two free papers

Waiting for a to-go order to be prepared at Cafe Yumm (my wife and I love this fairly new Salem restaurant), I headed across the parking lot to caffeinate myself at French Press. Where my 16 ounce non-fat vanilla latte had a marvelously artistic look to it. I have no idea how baristas do this. Actually, I don't want to know. I like living with the mystery of "Wow!" Whether by chance or design, the guy who made my latte achieved a blossom within a heart within primordial ripples of the big bang. Or something like that.  Needing some reading…
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Posted inHome life Salem

After 37 years, my last Betsy Thelan haircut

Since 1977 I've had a marvelous relationship with a Salem woman. She was with me through the end of my first marriage after 18 years. She's stood by my side through the 24 years of my second marriage.  Heck, she I have spent more continuous time together than almost anybody else in my life. So it was bittersweet for us to hug and say our goodbyes today. The occasion deserved a parting selfie. Betsy Thelan has been cutting my hair since I moved to Salem 37 years ago. Now she and her husband are moving to central Oregon to live…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana

Oregon anti-drug summit cancelled. Oregon Marijuana Education Tour should be also.

Good news for advocates of ethical political campaigns. Willamette Week is reporting that a planned Oregon Marijuana, Alcohol, and Other Drug Summit in Madras on October 1-2 has been cancelled. (See the blog post I wrote yesterday about the summit and associated tour.) The sponsor of a government-funded anti-drug summit has cancelled the event after WW first reported it had been set timed to coincide with the fight over Measure 91, the marijuana legalization measure. BestCare Treatment Services said late Thursday it was withdrawing from the summit, which was scheduled to include anti-drug activist Kevin Sabet. WW's story raised questions about the timing of a tour that would include…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Taxpayer-funded “Reefer Madness” tour coming to Oregon

So for self-interested reasons, who would you expect would be against Measure 91, an Oregon initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana? Why, (1) law enforcement officials, because as long as marijuana is illegal, they have more lawbreakers in this state to justify their budgets; and (2) drug treatment staff, because so long as marijuana is (wrongfully) viewed as a dangerous drug, they have a larger pool of supposed drug abusers to justify their programs. Currently polling is showing that Measure 91 likely will pass in the upcoming November election. Backers of the initiative recently announced a $2.3 million advertising campaign.…
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Posted inRecreation

Photos of our 2014 Canyon Creek Meadows hike

Back in 2007 I shared photos of how the Canyon Creek Meadows trail looked four years after the 2003 B and B Complex fire roared through this part of the Jefferson Wilderness in central Oregon.  Here's an update, seven years later.  Yeah, just a little ways from the trailhead we're told this is wilderness. As in wild. As in Thoreau's famous saying, "In Wildness is the preservation of the world." It sure helps us feel better about the world to be away-from-it-all for a while.  Early on in the hike it is evident that regrowth is happening 11 years after…
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Posted inSalem

Bend (gasp!) shows Salem how to do urban design

There's a lot to like about Bend. But I've never thought of this central Oregon city as being on the cutting edge of mixed-use urban development. Well, I've never thought of my home town, Salem, as being cutting-edge in that way either. In fact, in any way. There's also a lot to like about Salem. However, there's a reason Oregon's capital city is often referred to as So-Lame. Still, I've figured that since Salem is in the mostly progressive Willamette Valley we had an edge over Bend in urban design, given that Bend is more conservative politically (in-migration of Californians…
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s newspaper gets new publisher. We really need a new newspaper.

The Salem Statesman Journal has a new publisher, Terry Horne, nine days after the Gannett Corporation announced it was spinning off its newspaper operations, leaving them to an uncertain economic fate.Download Terry Horne to join Statesman Journal as new publisher Gannett announced that previous publisher Steve Silberman was "moving on to a new job" on the same day the restructuring was revealed. Supposedly the search for his replacement would take place far and wide. Download Statesman Journal publisher moving to new job in Gannett John Zidich, president of Gannett's U.S. Community Publishing Divisions' West Group, said the company would consider internal…
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Posted inSalem

How to solve downtown Salem’s parking problem

Last night I attended a meeting of a group that has been discussing parking problems in downtown Salem, Oregon. I don't know if it has an official name, so I'll call it the Parking Group. From what I could tell it is made up of small business owners. A few outside observers, such as me, also were in attendance. The Parking Group's goal is to come up with some recommendations to improve the downtown parking experience, then send them on to the Salem City Council. Some background:  Last year a City Parking Task Force was well on its way to…
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