HinesSight

Salem Community Vision ready for New Year

Thanks, guys, you who checked out the Salem Community Vision web site after I whipped it up recently in a flurry of Wix-inspired creativity and asked for feedback.

I've become a believer in the Wix web site creation service. It's a winner for people like me -- those who feel comfortable doing some site designing, yet are about as familiar with HTML coding as with Sanskrit. 

I'm also a big believer in the potential of Salem Community Vision to do some good for our fair city, which could be way fairer, in 2014.

Here's a key reason. 

If there's anything Salem, Oregon, the United States, and the world at large needs now, it is more talking that makes things better rather than talking that makes things worse.

Divisiveness is draining. It's exhausting.

The never-ending clash of R vs. D, conservative vs. liberal, faith vs. science, rich vs. poor, corporations vs. people, it just has gotten way out of control. I'm tired of it.

Yet those words... community and vision... I love them.

We're all in this thing called Life together.

Sure, we all have different views of what life is all about. However, it is possible to come together and create a shared vision of what we value, what we want to work toward, what makes life meaningful for just about everyone.

To do that, its necessary to go beyond slogans, tag lines, Twitter tweets, and Facebook posts. Frank Bruni talks about this in "For 2014, Tweet Less, Read More." His exhortation goes beyond reading, though.

On social media, on many blogs and along other byways of the Internet, the person you disagree with isn’t just misinformed but moronic, corrupt, evil. Complaints become rants. Rants become diatribes. And this tendency travels to cable news shows, Congress and statehouses, where combatants shout first and ask questions later.

For more than two decades, there’s been a celebration of slow food. Over the last few years, we’ve proved receptive to slow TV. What we really need is slow debate. It would trade the sugary highs and lows of rapid-fire outrage for a more balanced diet. We’d be healthier. Probably happier, too.

Next month Salem Community Vision hopes to engage City of Salem officials in debating the pros and cons of their $70 million-plus proposal for a new police facility building at the Civic Center, which includes seismic retrofitting and remodeling of existing Civic Center structures.

These would be what Bruni calls slow debates. The old-fashioned kind. 

Open to the public. People sitting in an auditorium. Two sides presenting their viewpoints clearly and respectfully. Plenty of time for questions, comments, and back and forth discussion involving both the citizenry and public officials.

In his fascinating book, "Happy City," Charles Montgomery speaks about our need for a sense of belonging, of community, of civic engagement.

This matters not only because civic engagement is a civic duty, and not just because it is one more contibutor to well-being. (Which, by the way, it is: we tend to be happier when we feel involved in the decisions that affect us.)

It matters because cities need us to reach out to one another as never before.

A few years after convincing the world of the value of social capital, the sociologist Robert Putnam produced evidence that the ethnic diversity that is increasingly defining major cities is linked with lower levels of social trust.

This is a sad and dangerous state of affairs. Trust is the bedrock on which cities grow and thrive. 

Modern metropolitan cities depend on our ability to think beyond the family and tribe and to trust the people who look, dress, and act nothing like us to treat us fairly, to honor commitments and contracts, to consider our well-being along with their own, and, most of all, to make sacrifices for the common good.

Collective problems such as pollution and climate change demand collective responses. Civilization is a shared project.

May making Salem a better place to live, work, and play become much more of a shared project in 2014. Salem Community Vision will do its part. So must we all. 

Is City of Salem trying to screw up downtown parking?

I made this post's title a question. But it easily could have been a statement: City of Salem trying to screw up downtown parking, given the evidence to support this. 

Today Carole Smith, a downtown business owner and resident, told it like she sees it in a Statesman Journal guest opinion. I'm going to share the entire piece so it will be available when the newspaper moves "Council insincere on parking" to its archives.

The parking petition mentioned by Smith was signed by about 9,000 people. It called for a ban on parking meters downtown and elimination of onstreet parking time limits.

When the Salem City Council adopted the downtown parking initiative petition in October, they had three options: place a competing measure on the ballot, reject the petition or adopt it.

If the City Council didn’t support the petition, they should have offered a competing measure. Their measure could have offered their solutions and let the citizens decide which measure they support. Instead, the City Council adopted the petition and pledged to “do everything in our power to make this work” and the mayor pledged to “reserve on-street parking for customers.” But even before they adopted it, they were already discussing how they planned to “change” it.

The petition’s sole purpose was to move the City Council off the fast track toward parking meters and re-align them with what the citizens want. The petition never pretended to provide the final and absolute solutions to all parking problems downtown.

When the City Council adopted the petition, they obligated the city to provide parking enforcement to prevent employees from parking on-street while at work.

We estimate employees are using almost 500 of the 1,200 on-street spaces daily. The city is undermining enforcement by continuing programs with a known history of failure. They want enforcement to fail so they can get back to time limits and meters as soon as possible.

We had successful employee enforcement for 30 years. We don’t need the city to develop a new program — just implement the old one that worked. For example, in the past, when the city had a $250 fine if businesses failed to submit employees names when the city requested them, more than 90 percent of businesses complied. Today the city requests employee lists without a fine and only 20 percent comply.

Successful enforcement is impossible without an accurate method to identify employees, but City Council refuses to reinstate the fine. Without proper enforcement, it is impossible to “reserve on-street parking for customers” as the mayor pledged.

To prove the citizens are wrong, the city is prepared to ruin the holiday shopping season for all the downtown businesses — and they plan to blame downtown businesses and the 9,000 people who signed the petition and dared to disagree with them.

One city councilor publicly reported, “free parking downtown will fail and council will have to make drastic changes after the first of the year.” Another city councilor called free, unlimited time parking “a real mess” and “a disaster.” Not inspiring descriptions of a program the City Council pledged to “do everything in (their) power” to make work.

If free downtown parking fails, it is simply because the City Council wanted it to fail. From the moment the City Council adopted the petition, they owned the successful program it could be — or the failure they create. We need to see leadership from our City Council now.

Councilors, prove to the voters you stand behind your pledge to “do everything in our power to make this work.” Stop blaming others and start putting your words into sincere action.

Carole Smith of Salem is a downtown business owner, property owner and resident. She can be reached at [email protected].

I heartily agree that the Mayor, City Manager, and City Council now own the parking policy that was approved. Nobody forced the City Council to adopt the citizen petition.

As Smith says, if the City of Salem thought unlimited free onstreet parking in the downtown area was a bad idea, city officials should have allowed citizens to vote on the proposal in the May, 2014 election, as petition sponsors preferred.

Instead, it does indeed look like the Mayor and City Council wanted to implement the parking meter ban so they could undermine it as quickly as possible.

If this isn't the case, then why is the City of Salem doing such a crappy job of enforcing the longstanding ban on employees using onstreet parking spaces while at work? Here's two exchanges between Carole Smith and other people in the comments section of her opinion piece:

Alan Kreidberg
From what I read here, it seems unlimited free parking didn't work out so well during the holidays. It would be interesting to hear other points of view on the subject.

Carole Smith 
90% of our on-street parking spaces turned over every 90 minutes before we had time limits, and after time limits. There was NO change or advantage to 2 hour limiits. Customers who wanted to shop longer did not use the garages - they left downtown. After the first year 2 hour limits were in effect 1,300 fewer cars used the parking structuures. So, not only did our customers leave before they were done shopping - but our employees stopped paying to park in the garages and moved their cars onto the street. 

The city used to write between 400-500 employee tickets annually, after 2 hour limits were implemented the city averaged 33 employee tickets annually. How much more proof do you need to see the city hasn't been serious about employee enforcement for the past 6 years.

We never needed 2 hour limits for our customers - the city implemented time limits so they could ticket our customers. We don't need that.

-----------------------------------

Daniel Dean 
The only way I could see enforcement would be for parking patrol to have an Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) that quickly records plates and checks against a database. But that would cause privacy issues, I'm not sure if I would want my license plate recorded just because I went shopping or have coffee with a friend.

Carole Smith
The city used to fine downtown businesses $250 if they did not give the city a list oi their employees names. 90% of businesses complied. Giving employee names is not a privacy issue - and it worked for 30 years. The city used to have a list of all employees and their license plate numbers. If a car is seen parked all day, several days a week, in the same location - the officers checked their data base to see if they were an employee, If they were, and if they were at work, they were issued a ticket. If it worked for 30 years, why wouldn't we go back there? 

Great question. Why isn't the City of Salem doing everything it can to make a success of the downtown parking policy that the City Council approved? 

People are tired of political game-playing by elected officials. Really tired. Just say what you mean, and do what you say. Don't vote for something you disapprove of, just because you want to be able to make it fail.

It sure seems like this is what happened with the Stop Parking Meters Downtown citizen petition. Aside from the lack of enforcement of the ban on employee onstreet parking while at work, the City of Salem has started to ticket downtown businesses that use 30 minute spaces to unload supplies.

Once again, it sounds like the motivation here is to punish the many businesses that supported the ban on downtown parking meters. Otherwise, why make such a marked change from a longstanding 30 minute parking space policy?

For 28 years, Jim Lind has used 30-minute parking spaces near his downtown shop to unload polished stones, crystals, beads, jewelry and other merchandise.

That changed in November when the parking patrol warned Lind that he risked getting a $100 ticket if he parked in a 30-minute zone, even for a minute. He was told the nearest legal spot for unloading products is an alley around the corner.

“If you’re carrying an 80-pound box of thundereggs, that is challenging,” said Lind, co-owner of Crystal Power & Light Co.

Downtown merchants are being told they can be ticketed for using 30-minute spots as loading zones, city officials confirmed. It’s an abrupt shift in policy.

Parking spaces in the Downtown Parking District are reserved for customer parking. Downtown employees using the spots during work hours can be cited. But the city’s stringent, new interpretation of a 36-year-old parking ordinance has surprised small business owners.

A commenter on the Statesman Journal story said in response to someone else:

Larry George 
Hay Jim - You're right. It is no coincidence that this problem came up AFTER Carol Smith circulated the petition that forced the City's hand. The City speaks with forked tongue. They tell everyone that they support a viable downtown and then they stab someone in the back like Jim Lind who is simply trying to run his business.

I'll end with an astounding fact: no one from the City of Salem, repeat, no one, ever has met with Carole Smith and the other folks who got 9,000 people to sign the petition banning downtown parking meters and doing away with two hour time limits. 

The petition that the Salem City Council approved of.

I find this amazing. 

A reasonable and competent City government would respect the will of the people. City officials would want to collaborate with leaders of the petition drive, especially since the City Council voted to approve the language of the petition.

To me this is additional evidence that the City of Salem doesn't really care what citizens want, and isn't interested in fostering a cooperative, collaborative relationship with the public that City officials have sworn to serve.

But, hey, a New Year starts in a few days. Fresh starts are possible. I sure hope the City chooses to work with downtown business owners and visitors, rather than against them.

I'm a web site creator! Now, tell me if it works.

Wow. Now I kind of understand how a genuine web site creator geek spends his or her evenings.

Having fun. Obsessed. Being frustrated. Happy. Worried. Yet in the end... feeling good.

I just spent a couple of hours with a template-based web site creation service, Wix. I had the idea that a service like that could be a good way for Salem Community Vision to put up a functional web site quickly and cheaply.

So I Googled "web site creation service," or something like that.

After a few minutes of looking at Ten Best listings and such, I got intrigued by Wix. After a few minutes of looking at pre-fashioned web site Wix templates, I chose one that seemed close to what I was looking for.

Then it was just a matter of flowing with the energy of obsession. Initially my intention was that I was going to just play around a little with Wix. 

A few hours later, my cup of strong coffee drained, I had an entire web site. Or at least a damn good start at one. 

Behold... my creation.

My main worry now is whether HTML-5, whatever the heck that is, is compatible with enough browsers. I came across a review of Wix that said the trendy, cool, cutting-edge HTML-5 coding used by Wix is apt to befuddle older browsers.

So anyone who reads this can be my (unpaid) beta tester.

Let me know if the website works well on your computer. There also is a Wix mobile version that can be tested on a smartphone or tablet. It seems to function nicely.

Here's the Hines 2013 Christmas Letter -- not unduly uplifting

Shameful admission: for a few brief seconds this year I actually thought about not writing a 2013 Christmas Letter. 

Laurel and I share so much on Facebook and my blog, went through my mind. Haven't we already shared enough dog, granddaughter, and longboarding photos?

But there was an immediate next thought: Nyah, of course not!

So I got into the Christmas Letter writing spirit a few days ago and dashed out this:
Download 2013 Christmas Letter PDF

To relieve anxiety among people who fear that this is one of those dreadfully positive and uplifting Christmas letters, fear not. We start out with...

Don’t worry. This isn’t one of those Christmas letters. You know, the kind that make you feel like your life sucks compared to the oh-so-exciting, productive, happy year those other people describe.

Relax. We didn’t go on any amazing vacations. Our dog died. Brian turned 65 and is on Medicare. Laurel’s feet hurt so much we stopped dancing. 

I did, however, end on an upbeat note. Sorry about that.

If you are in the mood for a truly humorous downbeat Christmas missive, check out this 2012 blog post of mine, "My favorite dark, twisted (and funny!) Christmas letter."

Geoffrey James tells City of Salem how to save $30 million

A few days before Christmas Architect Geoffrey James gave Salem, Oregon taxpayers a great present: $30 million.

Well, let's call it a potential present, because this is how much James believes a City of Salem bond levy could be reduced if some viable alternatives to the City's proposal are pursued.

The project under discussion is a new police facility and seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center. Plus the City wants to tear down the current Council Chambers and construct a new Chambers close by. 

James, a founder of Salem Community Vision, describes a better way in a December 20 guest opinion in the Statesman Journal, which the newspaper titled "Salem losing millions in facility proposal."

Here's a PDF file of the piece:
Download Salem losing millions in facility proposal

More information about Salem Community Vision and its efforts to improve the police facility/Civic Center project can be found here.

Since the guest opinion will find its way into the Statesman Journal archives before too long, below is what James said:

Geoff James AIA, Architect served as chair of the Courthouse Square Technical Committee in 2011 
/Special to the Statesman Journal

Can Salem taxpayers afford a $70 million to $85 million proposal for a new police facility and seismic upgrade of the Civic Center? We don’t think so.

I am working with a new group of citizens called Salem Community Vision. They’ve come together to advocate for more community involvement and fiscal responsibility in local government. We have the same volunteers who put the Courthouse Square project on the right track to get the repairs done for $30 million less than the county was told they had to spend.

Now we have a similar message for city leaders.

Our message is a positive one. The Salem Police Department needs and deserves a new facility. They are in a totally inadequate and overcrowded space: just 28,000 square feet in the basement and first floor of City Hall. This is a building that may collapse in a major earthquake, crushing our first responders and their vehicles just when we need them the most.

Eugene had the same problem. How did they solve it?

They moved their police department out of City Hall into a re-purposed 65,000 square feet building with surface parking spaces. “It’s a perfect solution,” says the Eugene police chief.

Their new facility cost only $17 million. Much less than the $35 million city staff are projecting for Salem’s new police facility.

So why the huge difference in cost between two cities with comparable police facilities? The difference mostly has to do with the city of Salem’s insistence that the facility be in a new building at the Civic Center. This location requires 235 underground parking spaces in a $13 million city staff garage. When the “big one” comes, the police cars may be trapped, buried underground.

There are many other problems with the city’s proposal. For example, a new City Council chambers is planned to be built a short way from the current one, at a cost of $1.3 million. Their proposal would take out mature trees and open space while doing harm to Peace Plaza and Mirror Pond.

Salem Community Vision is proposing an alternative plan for the police facility and Civic Center seismic upgrade that is responsible and affordable. It involves selecting one of several available sites in town that could accommodate a 70,000-plus square feet building and 200-plus surface parking spaces. This police facility can be built for under $20 million.

We believe the needed seismic upgrade to the entire Civic Center (including the library) can be accomplished for another $20 million. The total $40 million bond levy would be about half of the tax increase the city is currently proposing.

The city is on the wrong track in planning for needed improvements to city of Salem facilities. Salem Community Vision has a better idea. We hope city officials are listening and want to talk about alternatives. Potentially saving $30 million or more is worth a conversation.

Geoffrey James A.I.A. is a Salem architect who has been active in this community for 40 years. In 2013 he helped found Salem Community Vision, a group of local community leaders who support the proposed police facility and also seismic repairs to City Hall. He can be reached at [email protected].

My Metolius River tubing video goes anti-viral on You Tube

Wow! I'm an anti-viral You Tube sensation!

After finally getting around to putting up a video of me, my granddaughter, and her parents tubing down the beautiful Metolius River last August, in less than a day I've already gotten... (drum roll, please)...

4 views!

All of which, of course, are the result of me checking again, and again, and again, and again, to see how the video looks. 

Have a look. Make me even more ecstatic. Let's go for 5. Then -- dare I hope? -- 6, 7, 8, 9, to who knows? Don't mathematicians say the number of integers is infinite?

 

In our just-completed Holiday Letter, to be released to the online world Christmas Eve, I note that this is an award winning video: Best Use of Senior Citizen Knees in a GoPro Camera Video Production. 

I made another version for my granddaughter and her family as a Christmas present. It is way cooler and more emotional, because the sound doesn't include my narration -- just two songs.

Tina Turner's Proud Mary and Nora Jones' Come Away With Me. 

Geezer'ish You Tuber that I am, before uploading the video I was completely clueless about what happens when copyrighted songs are included in a video.

You Tube doesn't mess around. They must have both a top-notch legal team and highly-sophisticated music identification software. 

Because within about, say, two seconds, my song-infested video had been tagged with a copyright dispute notice.

Cleverly, clicking on it led me to a page where You Tube allowed me to click on a bunch of reasons for why I should be allowed to keep the songs in the video. Such as, "I paid for the song." Or, "I'm not making money from use of the song."

It took me about, say, two seconds to realize that no matter which reason I checked, I was met with a "This isn't a valid reason to defy copyright law," or words to that effect.

After Googling around for a few minutes, I realized that it wasn't worth the time or trouble to leave the songs in the You Tube video. So I fired up iMovie, deleted the songs, and unmuted the sound in the original video.

Sorry, Tina Turner and Nora Jones lovers. Their songs really did fit well with the video. Nothing like rolling down a river, or come away with me.

Turn off the sound on your computer when you play my video, and let the "soft" section of Proud Mary rip on a CD or smartphone, followed by Come Away With Me.

Then you'll glimpse the auditory marvelousness of my copyright-challenged video version. 

StreetStrider -- my new fun non-traditional exercise

Here's a hot-off-the-iPhone photo of my Christmas present to myself, which I opened early.

A StreetStrider, which is an outdoor elliptical bike. It's on a hitch rack that is made for the unusual machine -- two wheels in front, one in back.

I decided to get a StreetStrider to supplement my other non-traditional outdoor exercise, senior citizen land paddling on a longboard/skateboard. (You can peruse my land paddling blog posts here; scroll down for earlier ones.)

Longboard land paddling is a lot of fun. Most of the time. Not so much, though, when Oregon storms leave the Minto Brown Island Park trails leaf and twig strewn, wet, and slippery. 

It's easy to ride over a finger-sized twig on a bicycle tire. A skateboard wheel sometimes will stop suddenly, leaving the rider, such as 65 year old me, continuing onward. Rather rare event, fortunately, but it has happened to me.

I've been exercising inside at the Courthouse Athletic Club when conditions are too crappy for me to do my land paddling thing.

But now that I've gotten used to cruising for five miles or so outdoors at beautiful Minto Brown Park, it feels dismal to stand on a stationary elliptical machine, listening to a podcast or watching TV.

Too tame. No fun. Unnatural.

Having put in 25 minutes and a couple of miles on the StreetStrider on Minto Brown trails today, I'm happy with my purchase. My initial impression is simply put...

It kicked my butt. Which is a positive review.

I'm in very good shape for someone my age. I got the hang of turning the StreetStrider almost right away. It's a lot like turning on a skateboard or longboard: weight the side you want to turn toward. Here's how it's done: 

But, man, I was using different muscles on the StreetStrider, and feeling it.

After 2.6 miles I was pretty much cooked. In a good way. Breathing hard, but not exhausted. I could have gone further, but didn't want to push myself too much on my first ride.

I'm impressed with the quality of the StreetStrider. I paid $99 to have it assembled by a local bike shop, Santiam Bicycle. I'm glad I did. 

The Santiam Bicycle guys told me the StreetStrider is as mechanically sophisticated as any regular bike they sell. It has drum brakes in front, which I've never had on a bicycle. And a smooth 8 speed shifter on the right handlebar.

It feels solid. I was comfortable riding it, even with decidedly less-than-perfect technique, after a few turns around one of the Minto Brown parking areas. (Previously I'd practiced some in our carport.)

Leaning to turn will feel weird to some people. But not to skateboarders, skiers, surfers, and such.

I didn't experience any steep downhills today. From this video, it looks like carving down a hill on a StreetStrider will be a lot of fun.

l'm impressed with the StreetStrider staff also. They handled the "White Glove" local assembly arrangements perfectly. When questions arose, I got a phone call and we dealt with them.

The bike arrived in just a few days from Fresno, even though it was in the midst of the holiday shopping season. The 2-inch hitch rack came directly to me, while the StreetStrider was delivered to Santiam Bicycle. That allowed me to assemble the rack before picking up the StreetStrider.

I won't be going up any steep hills. But I can't do that on a longboard either. The StreetStrider really isn't designed for long distance travel, like a bicycle is. It's a fun exercise machine, is the way I look upon it. 

People don't go to a gym to have an easy time. You go there to sweat, exert yourself, build muscles and stamina.

I already can tell that a 30-60 minute StreetStrider workout is way better exercise than putting in the same amount of time on a regular bicycle or stationary elliptical machine. After all, for quite a few years I've been doing 30 minute workouts on an indoor elliptical trainer.

Like I said above, on my first ride the StreetStrider pretty much wasted me in 25 minutes.

Outdoors just is way different than indoors. I can slack off indoors; getting up a hill today without stopping outdoors pushed my exercise buttons much differently than an athletic club elliptical machine does.

StreetStrider describes its view of the bike's health benefits here.

Lastly (until my next StreetStrider post), here's a video from an 80, or 79, year old guy that helped me decide to get a StreetStrider. I liked his attitude. Direct and heartfelt.

 

OK, forgot about another video I wanted to share. So here's my lastly, lastly...

This video made by StreetStrider only has a few views, but it is the best instructional video I've come across. Strangely, it only lasts for three minutes or so, though it is shown as 8:15 long. This shows how to ride the bike. 

  

Salem needs more artistry from City officials

In a way, we're all artists. Or at least, have the potential to be.

I'm not talking about being able to paint, sculp, make music, dance, compose poetry, or such. Being artistic is much more than that.

It's an inner quality of openness, creativity, spontaneity, expressiveness and much else that can't be put into words. 

You can be an artistic anything. Plumber. Bartender. Lawyer. Housecleaner. Pilot. 

Or... Mayor. City Manager. City councillor. Department head.

I wish we had more artists among City of Salem leadership. This would go a long way toward making Salem, Oregon a more vibrant place to live, work, and play.

I got to thinking about this after talking with some friends today. We discussed what went on at the Salem City Club's "My New Year's Wish for Salem" meeting last Friday.

(Which I blogged about.)

I told the group that before the meeting I anticipated a pretty typical panel presentation. The panelists would wish for an end to homelessness, hunger, poverty, and other social problems. 

There would be clapping after each wish. Because how can you not applaud for good things to happen in Salem? 

But otherwise I envisioned myself sitting at a table, sipping coffee, placidly listening to other people talk about their New Year's wishes for Salem.

Fortunately, as mentioned in my post, Carlee Wright and Brian Hart brought a burst of energetic artistry into the City Club meeting room. Everyone was invited to write their own wishes on large brightly-colored post-it notes. 

These were placed on a big board, where they could be perused after the meeting. This exercise was surprisingly pleasing for me.

Not only did I enjoy writing down my own wish; seeing the highly diverse, creative, and passionate wishes of others was equally enjoyable.

Today my friends and I wondered why this sort of thing doesn't happen more often in Salem.

Why don't City officials actively encourage this sort of blue-sky, brainstorming, speak-your-mind, break-out-of-the box community artistry?

Those of us of a certain age, such as my 65, have fond memories of Steve Martin's "I'm a wild and crazy guy" bit.

Which, damn it, I couldn't find on You Tube. But a few minutes of watching Martin's King Tut time-traveled me back to his oh-so-appealing wild and crazy persona.

 

(Yeah, I know, youngun's, Martin may just look like a stupid-acting guy to you; believe me, he was, and is, way more than that.)

We need more wildness and craziness here in Salem. Doesn't have to be of the howl at the moon variety. Or the run naked through the woods variety. I'd be content with a whole lot tamer.

Like more community gatherings such as last Friday's City Club meeting.

Where people can share wild and crazy ideas about what could and should happen here. Where City leaders say yes, yes, yes to whatever, since there is no no, no, no when it comes to artistic expression.

Feel it and share it, no holding back.

Today my friends and I talked about how much energy there is in this town, how much creativity, how much enthusiasm. It gets bottled up when people feel what's the point? they won't listen.

Our City's elected officials and top management haven't yet learned that leadership isn't so much about control, as about inspiration. A good leader lets other people get out in front. Salem will truly blossom when citizens feel this is our city, and we can make it marvelous.

That is art. What we need are City officials who recognize the beauty of it.

Update: reading the TIME magazine story about Person of the Year Pope Francis, I came across a quote that seemed apt here. Just substitute "City of Salem" for "Church":

"I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather that a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security."

Putting our dog to sleep was a tough decision

I don't like euphemisms. But I still feel better saying "to sleep" in this blog post title than "euthanize," which is what we had done to our beloved dog Serena today. 

It's a really tough decision. I miss her a lot. It wouldn't take much for the tears to return. But one way I cope with emotional pain is writing about it. So, I will.

Partly because I want to share some thoughts that might help others deal with a similar situation. Before I do that, I'll share a bit of what this article says:

Here’s what you need to know about putting a dog to sleep. Veterinarian Marie Haynes shares the most important criteria for putting a dog down and offers help for healing.

Are you confused about putting a dog to sleep? You’re not alone if you feel devastated, guilty, sad, and lost. This information about pet euthanasia is from a veterinarian who had to put her own dog to sleep. She shares her story, and offers general information about the process of putting a dog to sleep.

Here’s the most important thing to remember: ”If you can save your dog or cat even one day of discomfort, you must,” says Dr Haynes.

That’s the number one, most important criteria for deciding you should put your dog down. If he or she is suffering in any way, then it’s time to say good-bye.

Our 14-year old dog, Serena, wasn't in great physical pain. 

Being a Shepherd/Lab mix, she was suffering from a form of hip dysplasia -- a common problem in older German Shepherds. She could still walk, but if she lost her balance and sat down often she needed help to get up again.

Going down stairs, Serena was like a runaway train, unable to slow herself. Going up them, she was like the Little Engine That Could: Serena usually could make it to the top, but not easily. We worried that one day she'd fall and break a leg.

Then there was her fecal incontinence.

Serena's vet thought she had some feeling left in her anal area, but that older dogs with weak hind legs find it difficult to squat for very long. So they just poop standing up, wherever they are.

Which, Serena did. 

We've done a lot of poop cleaning-up inside our house the past few months. Once I spent almost two hours in the downstairs dog room cleaning an amazing nightime mess that I can only describe as a "poop explosion."

Serena had left semi-wet poop in many different places, then stepped in it, laid in it, and spread it over virtually the entire room. Where much of it had dried. Cleaning it up was an experience that made me feel both compassionate and frustrated in equal measure.

Several weeks ago it made us feel better to hear from our vet, "You've put up with Serena's fecal incontinence for a lot longer than most people would have." 

Well, for quite a while we weren't sure what to do. A friend wisely said, "When the time is right, you'll know." A few days ago, we knew. 

Serena's rear legs were getting weaker. She hadn't been herself for quite a while, having joined the ranks of dogs with senile dementia. I'd open a door to let her out and she would walk to the other side where the hinge was, pressing her head against the wall, seemingly wondering why she wasn't getting anywhere.

She spent a lot of time blankly staring out of windows. Normally an affectionate dog, Serena often would walk away when we tried to pat her. In the evening she would pace around the house, unable to settle down. 

Here's what did the most to change my mind about euthanizing Serena. Maybe other pet owners will find this helpful in making their own tough "put to sleep" decision.

During a visit to the veterinary clinic after Serena had gotten diarrhea to go with her fecal incontinence (the cause of her aforementioned "poop explosion"), I told the vet, "I'm hoping that one morning I'll go down to the dog room to get Serena, and she won't wake up -- having peacefully died in her sleep."

He replied, "Usually it doesn't work that way. Dogs typically go through a protracted difficult dying process." 

Not good to hear. But those words didn't really sink in until Serena and I were on one of our slow-motion evening dog walks.

I was thinking about what the vet had said. Then I realized that the euthanasia I'd been resisting up to then was almost exactly like the "going to sleep and not waking up" that struck me as such a good way for our old dog to die.

OK, maybe this seems obvious to you. But it wasn't obvious to me until something clicked in my mind. 

I didn't want Serena to suffer before she died. I wanted her to go out like how I and most other people want to die: suddenly, while still in pretty good health, not after a period of protracted illness and pain.

So today we did the deed. Yes, there were a lot of tears. Yet it felt at the time like the right thing to do, and still does.

We had some good days with Serena the past week. She could still go on walks with us and her younger "sister dog," Zu Zu. Today she put up with patting for a considerably longer time than she usually did. When the vet walked in, she said "Looks like Serena is ready to go."

Maybe the vet says this to every grieving person who has asked for a pet to be euthanized. Regardless, it seemed true, not just kind words.

I'd thought to bring Serena's favorite pad, where she had spent so many hours sleeping or resting on while we watched TV in the evening. Good decision. She seemed comfortable as she "went to sleep."

We were also, even through the tears. Can't ask for more than that. 

Salemians make creative 2014 wishes for our city

Salem, Oregon often is referred to as So-Lame. At least when compared to Salem's cooler neighbors, Portland, Corvallis, and Eugene.

But there is hope for our town, judging from the creative ideas that were shared at today's Salem City Club meeting -- "My New Year's Wish for Salem." Here's how it was billed:

If you could have one New Year’s wish for Salem, what would it be?
 
2014 is just around the corner.  It’s time to close the book on 2013 and think about the future of our city.  We’ve assembled a panel of Salem residents to do just that. Our panel represents a broad range of occupations, ages, and civic involvement but they all have one thing in common: some thoughts on what they’d like to see happen (or not) in Salem next year.

Below I've shared some of the post-it note wishes that were written by people in the audience, including me, and put on a large board at the request of Carlee Wright and Brian Hart, enthusiastic promoters of artistic citizen expression.

But first... some highlights from the panel presentation. Everybody had great ideas. These are a few that particularly resonated with me.

Rob Melton, the bar manager at Amadeus restaurant, talked about how Salem has got to do something about its glut of empty buildings and storefronts. Property owners aren't doing what they should to fill those spaces.

He said that a man he knows wanted to open a restaurant here. A suitable location was found, but the landlord refused to bring the propery up to code. Understand: the man wasn't asking for the landlord to pay for renovations, just for necessary improvements to make the building legally usable. 

Now, Melton said, McMinnville has a new restaurant. Salem doesn't. Because the man went elsewhere. 

I don't remember all of the details of Melton's wish, but this was the gist: make it financially tough on landlords who prefer to get tax write-offs for empty buildings, rather than rent them to people who want to open a shop, restaurant, or whatever.

After a property is vacant for six months, require the landlord to try harder. I believe Melton said the requested rent should be decreased. Then progressively tighten the screws on the property owner.

Great idea in concept. Probably tough to do politically. Sure is worth discussing by City officials, though. Melton is absolutely right: Salem has way too many vacant buildings, and nobody is doing much to get them filled with new businesses.

Loretta Miles, owner of Salem Cinema, started off by talking about how great it is that we have an independent art house here. Lots of cities the size of Salem don't. But, she said, Salem Cinema faces a tough challenge in 2014.

Since movie theatres are going digital, moving away from 35mm film, Salem Cinema has to do the same to survive. The cost: $50,000 for each of the three theatres. That's $150,000 Salem Cinema has to come up with, or close.

Which would be super sad. 

I can't imagine what Salem would be like without Salem Cinema. Well, more accurately I don't want to imagine that. Miles will be starting a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money through individual donations.

(For a example of what this will look like, check out the successful CinemaSalem Kickstarter campaign that raised $69,000 in Salem, Massachusettts.)

When the time comes, everybody who loves Salem Cinema has to chip in. I've been a contributor to several Kickstarter projects. They're a lot of fun to be part of.

You get stuff for your contribution. You get insider updates on what is happening with the project. You get the satisfaction of knowing that you're helping a good cause stay out of the clutches of a bank lending department, not the most pleasant place to look for money these days.

Here's what the board looked like after Carlee Wright (entertainment reporter for the Statesman Journal) and Brian Hart (producer at Allied Video) asked City Club attendees to write down their own 2014 wishes for Salem. 

I took iPhone photos of some of the wishes. Including my own, of course. I'll share the content of the wish under each, since a few are difficult to read. I corrected some misspellings.

Rob Melton for Mayor. Running on a platform of "cool." Salem is only as LAME as you are.

1. Combination of my two favorite things: the cherry blossoms & Salem's outdoor markets into one festival. 2. A trolley that circles the capitol mall & takes people downtown to the restaurants & shops.

I want more street trees and for the city to own them. It was a great loss when the US National Bank cut down those lovely street trees. Trees are what make Salem livable.

Make downtown way cooler. City of Salem needs to let downtown businesses control their own downtown association. [This was my wish -- a subject I've blogged about before.]

Pocket parks and squares, especially in downtown and north and east Salem.

A diner... on a hill... with a view.

Salem is a destination day-trip city for people from Eugene, Portland, Corvallis, McMinnville.


Make the Riverfront and Minto Brown into a basis for art and enjoyment and exercise similar to the great rivers of Europe. Albeit on a smaller basis.

Salem is LAME. Laughter. Art. Massive. Energy. The safety to pursue your dream is in Salem.

Salem Sunday (at least) once a month!!

Let's make Salem the cultural capital of Oregon.

Would like to see programs via a diversity of media -- featuring how other communities, cities, etc. have devised different means of improving their communities -- as a means of invigorating us to action.

Lastly... kudos to Michael Davis, executive editor of the Statesman Journal, who did a great job moderating the City Club event. I also appreciated him expressing a wish that popcorn prices be reduced at movie theatres, as this was a learning moment.

Not surprisingly, Loretta Miles grabbed the microphone from him. She explained that movie theatres, whether large or small, don't make money from selling tickets. What pays the bills and keeps the theatre open is the snack bar. 

So she said she wishes for higher popcorn prices. Now that I understand the importance of the Salem Cinema snack bar to the theatre's ability to stay open, I'm going to pay for my popcorn there even more gladly. 

Already easy to do, because Salem Cinema has the best movie theatre popcorn I've ever eaten.

And super-kudos to City Club president Russ Beaton for his concluding song -- which I gather he composed himself -- that related Santa Claus and NSA spying in a pleasingly bizarre fashion.

I didn't know Russ could sing so well. Or, if he did indeed compose the ditty, had such song-writing skills.

Sadly, he said that his public performance was both the first and last for the song. Unsadly, CCTV filmed the event, so it will be possible for people all over the world to watch Russ sing his song for as long as the Internet endures.

Some talking could save Salem taxpayers $30 million

Talk is cheap, as the saying goes.

Conversely, not-talking can be expensive. This was my theme in the Salem Weekly Strange Up Salem column that hit the streets today. 

The current Salem Weekly issue isn't available online yet, so I'll share "Some talking could save $30 million" as a continuation to this post (see below). Here's how the column starts.

“We need to talk.” This can be an ominous-sounding statement. Like when your boss utters it after a bunch of co-workers already have been laid off.

But government officials should love to hear those words from the people they serve. 

For example, if taxpayers want to talk about being asked to pay $70 million for something that could cost $40 million, that’s a conversation worth having.

Which is what needs to happen here in Salem. 

After several years of mostly-secret meetings, City officials are running around town pushing a plan to build a new three-story Police Facility with expensive underground parking at the Civic Center.

Cost: $44 million. However, the City of Eugene recently remodeled an existing building into a similarly-sized police headquarters for $17 million. 

Salem Community Vision, a group working to improve local government decision-making through more citizen involvement, is asking why less expensive alternatives to the $44 million Civic Center Police Facility haven’t been seriously considered.

Below is a cost comparison worksheet prepared by Geoffrey James, an architect, and Gene Pfeifer, a designer and builder. Here's a PDF version:  Download How to save $33 million

James and Pfeifer have lots of experience with complex construction projects. They were instrumental in finding a much less expensive solution to fixing Courthouse Square, Marion County's problem-plagued building. 

The image at the top is a Site Plan prepared by the City of Salem. The City's June 2013 cost estimate for the new Police Facility and Civic Center renovation project is under the image: $70.5 million. Below that is a $37.5 million estimate prepared by James and Pfeifer that reflects a smarter way to go. (click to enlarge)

This isn't the last word, of course. It's a discussion piece.

People in Salem need to have an open, factual, and candid conversation about the best way to build a new Police Facility and seismically retrofit the Civic Center buildings. Like I said in the column, if talking can save $30 million, let's converse.

If you agree, sign the Salem Community Vision petition at Change.org. And give the group a Facebook like. 

For more info about why there is a better way than what the City of Salem is proposing, have a look at the Salem Community Vision brochure -- presented as "inside" and "outside" images. (click to enlarge)

Here's the entire Salem Weekly column.

Archive -- cool addition to Salem's downtown scene

Coffee. Cocktails. Food. Looks like there will be something for everybody when Archive opens in the McGilchrist building next March or April.

I learned about this bar/restaurant from a Salem Breakfast on Bikes post, "Hipster Baristas Add Booze and Bar, Invade Downtown." 

Excellent news!

The words hipster, barista, and downtown give me increased hope that Salem's core is on the way to being enlivened by some much-needed youthful energy. So says Breakfast on Bikes.

It will be a great addition to the scene already set by Ventis, La Capitale, Amadeus, Maven, and the others. 

What feels significant about this, though, is the way it could indicate a generational shift in downtown nightlife - not the 40 or 50-somethings, or even 30-somethings, but the 20-somethings.  Hopefully it will be additive, and not merely cannibalize business from other businesses.

Since I'm 65, I couldn't help but note the absence of a 60-something mention. But if Archive turns out to be as cool as its Twitter feed makes it appear, I could see this ex-hippie hanging with the hipsters. 

Who, judging by their tweeted photographs, either are ace photographers themselves, or have the services of someone who is.

Nicely done, Archive. Love the creative photographic vibe. You guys look like you're from Portland! (My biggest compliment.)

Jesse, the barista (used to be at Broadway Coffee House).

Kira, the bartender.

Justin, heading up the bar side of Archive.

Brent, bartender and craft beer guru.

Kaleb, the food guy. (How about some healthy, tasty, creative vegetarian offerings, Kaleb?)

Lastly, a photo that accompanied this tweet: "A little research for our beer offerings."

Great image. Looks like some wonderfully creative minds are involved with Archive. Success will be in your future, I bet.

New York Times kicking Oregonian's online ass

TO: Peter Bhatia ([email protected]), Jerry Casey ([email protected])
FROM: Brian Hines
RE: New York Times is kicking the Oregonian's ass

Mr. Bhatia and Mr. Casey, you are the Editor and Director of Digital Operations for the Oregonian, our state's largest newspaper. 

I have written you before about how, to put the matter succinctly, your online edition sucks and I hate the digital Oregonian.

However, I hold out hope that one day, perhaps, just maybe, I will actually be able to read the newspaper that I pay to get seven days a week but can only read on four -- since Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday the Oregonian isn't delivered to my rural south Salem home, and is only available online.

Where it is, to put the matter succinctly, unreadable. At least, without way more effort than I and many others are willing to put into navigating a horribly designed MyDigitalO.

I also pay $15 a month for a New York Times digital subscription. Here's a suggestion: do whatever you can to make the online Oregonian look, feel, and function like the NYT new Today's Paper web app.

MyDigitalO look, feels, and functions like crap, comparatively.

Here's how Today's Paper looks today. It opens as a web page in my Safari browser. I can easily scroll through the lengthy Nelson Mandela story on my MacBook Pro, something I can't do with MyDigitalO. Other front page stories are accessible with a click in the left column.

Scrolling down that left column, I find the other New York Times sections. Not as a virtually unreadable replica of the print newspaper like the online Oregonian is -- as a tidy, neat, easily read digital version of the NYT, the content pleasantly displayed for easy online perusal.


Clicking on National or International presents me with story headlines, as Front Page did. Choosing one of these opens it in the right reading column.

Wonder of wonders! So simple. So intuitive. So unlike the frustratingly unpleasant MyDigitalO.

Look: I understand that the Oregonian isn't the New York Times.

But nothing prevents you from walking in the digital footsteps of the NYT. I find it hard to believe that, with all of the software design talent here in Oregon, it isn't possible for you to make the online version of your newspaper as readable as the NYT Today's Paper is.

I want to return to enjoying the Oregonian seven days a week, not just four.

Please: seriously consider revamping your digital newspaper to look a lot more like the New York Times, and a lot less like what you are foisting on subscribers now.

Marijuana legalization creeping closer to Oregon

Oh, yeah, the times are definitely a'changing here in Oregon. High times are coming soon to Washington state, which legalized adult marijuana sales/use last year.

Willamette Week has reported news of considerable interest to those of a cannabis-consuming bent in northwest Oregon: the would-be sellers and growers in Clark County, a mere crossing of the Columbia River away from Portland.

I'm 65. I've been used to marijuana being illegal my entire life, obviously.

I still feel a pang in my '60s heart (the decade, not my age) when I remember driving with similarly stoned friends in my smoke-filled '57 VW bug to the ill-fated Altamont Free Concert, the flip side of Woodstock. The traffic was heavy as we neared the concert site.

I saw flashing lights and heard a siren behind us. Those being paranoid times, I rolled down my window and dropped the baggie that contained our entire stash onto the pavement. Only to watch the police car zoom past us. My friends weren't happy with me. But, hey, back then getting caught with Mary Jane was a pretty big deal.

Not for much longer. At least in the more enlightened states.

Washington and Colorado are showing Oregon the way to legalization. New Approach Oregon likely will have an initiative on the 2014 ballot one way or the other -- by a legislative referral or by gathering signatures.

It's pleasantly weird to look at the names of absolutely legal Clark County businesses that hope to sell or grow marijuana. Cultural changes can come fast, once a tipping point is reached. (Gay marriage is another example.)

Cannabee
Christy Cannabis
Clear Mind Canteen, LLC
Vansterdam
Spuds Buds
Wolf Marijuana

David Sarasohn has an entertaining piece in today's Oregonian, "Marijuana goes from a crime to a consumer story." 

Just when things looked bleak for newspapers, The Denver Post has found a way.

Readying itself to cover Colorado's voter-directed legalization of recreational marijuana, the Post has named a marijuana editor to oversee its coverage and its marijuana website, and is planning to add a freelance marijuana advice columnist and a freelance marijuana critic. (Of course, most marijuana critics are freelance.) Applications are flowing in, many of them written on rolling papers.

Finally, newspaper jobs that people are excited about.

And the Post jobs could well be a training ground. Washington also has voted to legalize marijuana, and the on-line Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a sponsored blog on the subject. Legalization will be on the Oregon ballot again next November – this column is not a job listing – and California is likely to be close behind.

And if it's a major position to be the rock critic of The Los Angeles Times or the restaurant critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, to be the marijuana critic of either of them would be a truly big deal.

Not to be confused with being a big dealer.

Portland's Willamette Week also has gotten on the journalistic bandwagon with its Willy Weed column. 

Very soon, on what is likely to be a cloudy day, storefronts across Portland’s plucky northernmost suburb will be front and center for one of America’s newest and nuttiest experiments. The question on some minds: Can marijuana use occur without humans devolving into rage-fueled cannibalism? The question on everyone else’s: Why did it take so long?

Of course, we Oregonians will be adjacent to the action, heads bowed in silent shame as Washington passes a glittery glass piece from Ilwaco to Colville.

Oregon was the first state to decriminalize marijuana, but this time those Appleheads out-pioneered us, and out-pioneered us good. Which makes it a little odd that, for the first time in its 40-year history, Willamette Week is rolling out a marijuana column. (This is that column.) Why not wait until marijuana is legal in, say, Portland proper?

Weed will be legally and openly sold a short drive away in only a few weeks. And we won’t have long to wait before it’s permitted here, too. A new legalization measure will almost certainly be on next year’s ballot, and there’s hint of the Oregon Legislature going no-huddle and passing a law earlier.

Washington’s approval of Initiative 502 conjures images of hangdog Oregonians trudging north for supplies in much the way our forefathers relied on Fort Vancouver for huggable beaver pelts. We’ll be paying weed taxes to Sounders fans, and paying their regressive sales tax on Juanita’s Chilipeño chips because it’s just so far back across the river and I’m hungry now, damn it.

And you know how much of that tax revenue will go toward building a bridge with light rail across the Columbia? Zero-point-zero percent.

Excellent point. Which goes a long way toward explaining why the money-hungry Oregon Legislature might take the lead in getting marijuana legalized here.

Salem, Oregon is really several cities: well-off and struggling

I live in south Salem. Well, rural south Salem, above five miles from the city limits. Yet I can drive to downtown in about 20 minutes. 

Where, if I go north or east, I'll reach a whole other sort of city: much poorer than the well-off enclaves of south and west Salem. 

Several recent stories by Hannah Hoffman (nice job, Hannah!) in the Statesman Journal have cast much-needed light on Salem's income disparities. 

The first one was "Salem shows vast income gap." Here's a PDF version for when the story falls into the paper's archives.
Download Salem shows vast income gap

West Salem is one of the wealthier neighborhoods in Oregon, according to a recent report by The Washington Post, and downtown and North Salem are some of the poorest.

The Post ranked every zip code in America based on median income and education level, measured by what percentage of adults have college degrees. West Salem falls in the 73rd percentile nationally, which means it is wealthier and better educated than 72 out of 100 zip codes in the country.

Meanwhile, downtown and North Salem are in the 17th percentile, and northeast Salem falls in the 19th percentile. They are in the bottom one-fifth of all American neighborhoods.

This is disturbing. As is the way Salem Mayor Anna Peterson looks upon these facts about how widely incomes vary in her city's neighborhoods.

Salem Mayor Anna Peterson was skeptical that Salem exhibits such stark income inequality.

“(West Salem) is a microcosm of this entire community. Don’t be misled by statistics,” she said. “There are millionaires that are downtown.”

Wow. Don't be misled by statistics.

The Washington Post report is based on census data, Mayor Peterson. If you don't believe in that solid data, I wonder how badly you're misinformed about other things a mayor should know about -- like climate change, transportation trends, sustainable technologies, urban design, and such.

What Peterson's comment revealed is that top public officials at the City of Salem aren't much concerned about income disparities among Salem's citizens and neighborhoods. They should be. 

A second story by Hoffman helps explain why. Here's some excerpts from "Sorting Salem: Income likely dictates neighborhood makeup."
Download Sorting Salem Income PDF

Neighborhood by neighborhood, Salem is sorting itself by income and by profession. The trend isn’t specific to Salem, or to Oregon, experts say. It’s happening nationally, as people choose more and more often to live near people whose lives are like theirs.

One thing is clear in the way Salem has sorted itself: Low-income and middle-income people still live side by side, but the wealthy aren’t mixing at all. They have their own neighborhoods and largely aren’t leaving them.

The Washington Post released a report earlier this month that ranked each ZIP code in the United States by median income and education, which showed a similar trend of people clustering with similar people.

However, one ZIP code can contain multiple neighborhoods, and it doesn’t give a complete picture of a town like Salem, where one neighborhood doesn’t resemble the adjacent ones at all.

The Oregon Office of Economic Analysis created its own report on Salem specifically, which shows how some neighborhoods show unusually large concentrations of one income level.

Analyst Josh Lehner said the report relied on two sources of data: Salem residents’ self-reported occupations and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ reported average wages for those professions

Check out Lehner's Salem Polarization Maps post. Here's the high wage map. (click to enlarge)

There's south and west Salem in dark green. Fitting, because that's where people with the most money live. And where the most economic activity is happening, since businesses follow money. 

Where did Trader Joe's build a store? South Salem. Where did Natural Grocers build a store? South Salem. Ditto for the soon-to-open Cafe Yumm. Which I'm thrilled about, having blog-begged several years ago for this terrific restaurant chain to open a store in Salem.

Hoffman's story explains more about Salem's stratification.

On the middle- and low-income maps, the areas that appear dark green on the high-income map are washed out — the middle and low-income people just don’t live there.

Lehner said these mirror images can be found in nearly every American city. Portland shows the same pattern, he said, although the larger city has an “urban premium” that Salem doesn’t have. It is expensive and impressive to live in Portland’s Pearl District, Lehner said, but Salem doesn’t have an equivalent part of its downtown.

As a result, Salem’s wealthy have stayed in the more suburban parts of town with newer houses and larger pieces of property, he said.

Further, Portland has experienced rapid gentrification over the past decade, he said, which has drawn wealthier people to poorer parts of town. However, Salem’s older neighborhoods have largely not been renovated or changed to attract a higher-income population, he said.

Here's the Salem low-wage map. As noted above, pretty much a mirror image of the high-wage map.

Lehner makes some important points that Mayor Peterson and other City of Salem officials would be wise to pay attention to. For whatever reasons, Salem's urban core isn't experiencing the revitalization other cities such as Portland have.

Gosh, is it possible that one of the reasons is that other cities have a more enlightened City government than Salem? I say, absolutely.

Discussing what the City of Salem is doing wrong in regards to downtown, other low-wage parts of Salem, and to making this area more attractive to people who now work in Salem and choose to live in the Portland area will have to wait for another post. 

I'll just observe that Mayor Peterson recognizes part of the problem, yet suggests an inadequate solution:

Peterson didn’t have a specific plan to address Salem’s economic disparity. She suggested part of it can be attributed to state employees who hold good-paying jobs in Salem but live elsewhere, taking that income with them.

“One of the things that I know about Salem’s demographics is that we have many managerial, specialized jobs, but those checks get cashed in Lake Oswego and Tualatin,” she said.

However, she said creating more jobs in Salem is the best way to solve the economic imbalance.

“Jobs is the crucial thing for us as a government to be doing,” she said.