Oregon League of Conservation Voters blew Blasi endorsement

When I heard Sheronne Blasi say at last Friday's City Club meeting, "I was endorsed by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters," a what the hell? alarm bell rang in my head.

Blasi is a Ward 2 candidate in the 2014 City Council race. She favors building a $400 million unneeded, unwanted, and unpaid for third bridge across the Willamette River. 

The bridge would be an environmental, conservation, and land use disaster. Let us count some of the ways:

-- The west end would land outside of the urban growth boundary, so the bridge would need exceptions to four statewide land use goals, including the Willamette River Greenway.

-- It would channel traffic away from the urban core, making distant malls like Keizer Station more attractive and harming the vitality of Salem's nascent mixed use downtown.

-- The bridge would foster sprawl in west Salem while doing next-to-nothing to address mild rush hour congestion on the existing two bridges. 

-- It would displace dozens of existing homes and businesses.

-- The bridge would trash the ambience of Wallace Marine Park and crush the revitalization of Edgewater Street.

-- It would expand Salem's carbon footprint considerably, hindering efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before irreversible tipping points are reached that will deeply harm humanity.

After the meeting I asked Blasi how she got the OLCV endorsement, given her support for the third bridge. She told me, "I don't know." 

Well, I wanted to know. So I emailed an OLCV staffer, asking how Blasi got the organization's endorsement. I also said:

I note that OLCV endorsed each of the three candidates running in Ward 2. This also seems a bit strange. What difference does the OLCV endorsement make if each candidate gets it?

 

Plus, Andersen and Swank are stronger environmental advocates. Blasi is the Chamber of Commerce choice. She only recently moved into the neighborhood, changing her voter registration to D from I. Word “on the street” is that Blasi has higher office aspirations and is a business lobby wolf trying to wear environmental sheep’s clothing.

 

Anyway, I’m perplexed by how she got a OLCV endorsement given her support for a Third Bridge. I realize the OLCV questions and answers are confidential. I’m just looking for some comments from you about why she got an endorsement, and also why every candidate in Ward 2 got an endorsement, which seems to make them equal in OLCV eyes.

I'm still waiting for a decent answer. I did get a reply, but I was told that I couldn't share that response on my blog. So I wrote back and asked for a blog-shareable answer. 

I’m sure you realize that I’m a strong OLCV supporter. What I’m trying to do is prevent a pro-sprawl Chamber of Commerce candidate, Blasi, from getting enough votes in her race against two truly progressive candidates to make it into a November election runoff.

 

Currently Blasi is able to make campaign speeches where she says “I favor building the third bridge” and “I’m endorsed by OLCV.” When they hear that most people, including me, assume OLCV favors building the third bridge, because this is the biggest environmental issue being discussed in Salem right now.

 

So you can see the logic here. One of these things happened in the OLCV endorsement process, neither of which make OLCV look good. The question is: which is true?

 

(1) OLCV endorsed Blasi without ever asking her about her position on the third bridge, even though this was a key issue that the Chamber of Commerce asked about, and was one reason Blasi got the Chamber of Commerce endorsement.

 

(2) OLCV endorsed Blasi knowing that she favors building the $400 million third bridge, but this wasn’t considered to be significant, so she got the same thumbs-up from OLCV as the other candidates, Andersen and Swank, did.

 

Regarding (2), this also would be more than a little astounding.

 

Let’s imagine that her answers to other OLCV questions were just the same as Andersen’s and Swank’s other than her support of the third bridge. Since OLCV endorsed all three candidates, this would mean that building the hugely expensive, sprawl-inducing, downtown-destroying third bridge was considered an insignificant environmental issue.

 

...So please let me know if the local OLCV committee asked the Ward 2 candidates about their position on the third bridge. If they didn’t, this means that the OLCV endorsement doesn’t mean very much, if anything. It was based on incomplete information and a casual “vetting” process. Voters then would know that OLCV didn’t endorse Blasi because of her position on the third bridge, which is decidedly anti-environment.

 

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Well, i'm still looking forward to that. A friend who did some checking around on her own tells me that it looks like the local OLCV committee Ward 2 endorsement process isn't for anyone outside of the organization to know about.

So at the moment it isn't possible to know how Blasi got the same endorsement as Tom Andersen and Bradd Swank, either of whom would be a much better city councillor than Blasi. 

It's weird that the Salem Chamber of Commerce is more open about how it makes endorsements than the Oregon League of Conservation Voters is. The questions posed to Andersen, Blasi, and Swank are on the Chamber's web site, along with their answers. 

I wish OLCV was more forthcoming about why Andersen, Blasi, and Swank were considered to be equally deserving of the conservation group's endorsement.

As noted above, logically either the local OLCV committee failed to even consider the Ward 2 candidates' positions on building a third bridge -- which was the first question asked by the Salem Chamber of Commerce -- or the committee felt that it didn't matter, conservation-wise, whether a $400 million Bridgeasaurus Boondoglus tramples Salem's environment.

Bottom line: Tom Andersen and Bradd Swank are the Ward 2 candidates who deserve the vote of anyone who values sustainability, environmental protection, livability, and long-term economic success for Salem.

Saddling residents with a $400 million tax increase for an unneeded bridge is crazy, but this is what Blasi wants to do. 

Comments

[Ben]

There's a certain delightful irony in listening to you, living on 5 acres in rural South Salem, rail on against sprawl. Brian, whether you're able to recognize it or not, you ARE sprawl, and I'm afraid you're too blinded by your own hypocrisy to recognize and admit it.

[Brian Hines]

Ben, I live in a duly authorized, legal, paid-for development in rural south Salem that dates from the early 1970s, just before Oregon's pioneering land use laws went into effect.

That was then. This is now.

We're not talking about pre-land use laws sprawl. We're talking about 2014, when the harsh reality of global warming has become apparent, and the utter non-need for a third bridge across the Willamette is obvious.

The current bridges need to be seismically retrofitted. The approaches need to be improved. Better public transportation options between West Salem and downtown are needed.

There's no hypocrisy here. Many environmental advocates live on small acreages. Our property provides many benefits. We've planted many trees, hundreds probably. We've left our property natural, providing shelter to coyotes, birds, deer, and other wildlife. I can oppose the third bridge and still enjoy living where we do.

I readily admit that our carbon footprint is greater than it would be if we lived in a city. New York City is the most environmentally green place to live. Someday we may do that.