HinesSight

Oregon legislature, don't screw up marijuana legalization

Big supporter of Measure 91 that I was, which legalized recreational marijuana here in Oregon in November 2014, and avid supporter that I was of Democratic control of the Governor's office and state legislature, which also transpired in the last election, I optimistically assumed that Dems would implement marijuana legalization properly.

Let's make that, over-optimistically. 

Because even though some legislators and government officials support both the intent and language of Measure 91, others are busily trying to undermine the 56% of Oregonians who voted in favor of legal cannabis.

The most egregious example of this is Senate Bill 964, which was passed by the state Senate on May 27. Among other things, it allows cities and counties to ban medical marijuana dispensaries without an automatic vote of the people -- something Measure 91 requires.

The Measure 91 folks, New Approach Oregon, explain why SB 964 is such a bad idea. 

Senate Bill 964, sponsored by Democratic Senator Ginny Burdick and Republican Senator Jeff Kruse, will allow a handful of city council members and county commissioners to ban state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries, without a mandatory public vote of the people.

This provision for medical marijuana businesses will hurt Measure 91’s voter-approved opt-out procedure, requiring a vote of the people, either in future legislation or future lawsuits. It is imperative that any opt-out procedure for marijuana businesses match the provision passed by over 56% of Oregon voters. Both The Oregonian and the Register-Guard have published editorials supporting a vote of the people.

Senate Bill 964 goes against the will of the voters and hurts the priorities of the state and even the federal government. Easily opting-out of state-regulated marijuana businesses will only exacerbate the illegal, underground market. Oregon voters want to stop treating marijuana as a crime and to bring as many people into a state-regulated system as possible; Senate Bill 964 goes against voters’ interests.

[Click here to find a list of House members to email and tell them "Vote No on SB 964"; there are a few semi-colons separating the names, though; I had to change those to commas when I copied and pasted the email addresses.]

It is indeed bewildering that state legislators would try to make medical marijuana more difficult to obtain than recreational marijuana. (I'm tempted to say "What were those legislators smoking?", but will refrain from doing so -- though, oops!, I just did.)

Consider: on the same day the Senate passed SB 964, the Oregonian reported that a plan to allow the sale of both medical and recreational marijuana in the current 200 medical marijuana dispensaries was greeted favorably by legislators and OLCC officials.

(The Oregon Liquor Control Commission is charged under Measure 91 with implementing regulations for the production, distribution, and sales of recreational marijuana.)

A concern, though, is that supposedly much of the cannabis produced by registered medical marijuana growers is finding its way into the black market. Maybe this is true; maybe it isn't. For the sake of argument, let's say that it is.

What would be some great ways to get that marijuana out of the black market and into legal distribution channels? 

Well, it doesn't take a genius to come up with two obvious ways:

(1) Allow medical marijuana dispensaries in the many cities and counties that have prevented them from opening, taking advantage of a state law that allowed temporary bans until May 2015.

(2) Allow the sale of recreational marijuana in medical marijuana dispensaries as soon as possible.

Doing these things would give those growing medical marijuana additional outlets to sell their cannabis. The best way to get rid of the black market is to expand the "white market."

Yet SB 964 would do the exact opposite, forcing lots of medical marijuana cardholders to continue to get cannabis from unregulated sources, since 26 of Oregon's 36 counties and 146 cities have banned dispensaries and could continue to do so without a vote of the people under SB 964.

Also, the Oregonian story says that the OLCC Chair, Bob Patridge, is worried about allowing sales of recreational marijuana before the end of 2016 -- which would be two freaking years after Oregonians voted for Measure 91.

So Patridge and other misguided state officials/legislators want to support the marijuana black market after it is legal for the citizens of this state to possess cannabis on July 1, 2015. Where are they supposed to get marijuana between that date and late 2016?

From the Pot Fairy? By growing their own? From their local pot dealer? The latter options are much more likely than the first, unfortunately.

However, just as relatively few people choose to grow their own tomatoes, preferring to buy them in a store, so it is with marijuana. Which, I've heard, is rather tricky to grow. At least, in a high quality manner.

Thus the smartest thing to do would be this: encourage as many medical marijuana dispensaries as possible by forbidding cities and counties from banning them without a vote of the people, and allow the sale of recreational marijuana in those dispensaries soon -- October 1 was mentioned as a possible start date in the Oregonian story.

Sure, eventually a "seed to sale" tracking system for marijuana growers should be implemented.

Until marijuana is legal everywhere in the country, this seems to be needed to keep federal officials from freaking out about the sale of cannabis, which is still crazily classified as a Class 1 illegal drug. But isn't it better to have Oregonians buying their marijuana from state-licensed outlets rather than on the black market?

A commenter on the Oregonian story, Wt Buffalo, left an insightful lengthy comment that I'll include in full in a continuation to this post. Here's some excerpts that mirror what I've been saying.

So, if you really think that Oregon Medical Cannabis grows have an over abundance of cannabis for the Black Market, then why didn't you tap the OMMP growers for the already produced cannabis, ASAP?  Or, sign them up to grow more immediately?  That would Stop the cannabis inflow to the Black Market, as fast as anything.  Dry up the supply for the Black Market and provide cannabis that could be watched, tested, inspected and regulated with contracts.

If Oregon uses the believed excess amount of OMMP produce cannabis for Recreational cannabis, wouldn't that be a much more efficient way to thwart the Black Market.  Let the OMMP illegal growers legally produce cannabis for Recreational Cannabis Market.  The vast majority of OMMP providers do not provide service illegally.  You all think that there is already enough cannabis produced to provide the Black Market.   Elusively, they are already producing enough cannabis, then use and test the cannabis for Medical and Recreational use.   

Why wait so long to open Recreational Cannabis?  The Legislator's and OLCC are costing the Oregon schools the revenues that could reduce class sizes.  Providing 40% of the collected Cannabis taxes for many much needed programs, should have been ready by July 1, 2015, about two month's from now.

Give cannabis producers a place to market cannabis legally.  Besides, the Black Market Cannabis producers are just laughing at you.  The longer you delay the Recreational Cannabis Stores, the more $$ they make.  They are also laughing about how the Legislator's and OLCC is making such a self-inflicted mess of M91.  The Black Market growers are going to continue to produce cannabis for the rest of the country laughing.

Lured with biscuit incentives, our dog buys a car at Capitol Toyota

Salem's Capitol Toyota dealership has a well-deserved reputation for dog friendliness. It paid off yesterday, when our dog ZuZu was cajoled into leasing a 2015 Chevy Volt.

(She wanted to get another Volt now that the lease on our 2012 Volt is about up. Liking the folks at Capitol Toyota, the deal was done through them; Capitol Chevrolet is right next door.)

On the drive to the dealership I'd warned ZuZu to focus on price and options. "Get the car you really want," I advised. "Don't be swayed by irrelevant incentives and salesmanship." 

Ignoring me, ZuZu headed right to the dog snack area as soon as we walked in the door. The bowl of water didn't wow her, but...

The Have A Treat biscuit container sure did.

It seems like there should be a canine consumer protection law preventing auto dealerships from putting out "free" biscuits in a container with many open holes on the top. ZuZu was powerless to resist.

Then Nate McCall, the fleet manager whose nickname is N8puppy (these guys are shameless at luring dog customers), started in with the sales pitches to ZuZu.


We all gathered around a table that was -- no big surprise -- located close to the Have A Treat container. Soften up ZuZu with some biscuits, then have her put her paw print on the dotted line. Obviously that was the plan.

Geez, Nate was blatant. Key fobs. Pen. Lease price and terms. AND a freaking large Milkbone biscuit, five times the size of the biscuits in the Have A Treat container.

We give ZuZu super-healthy biscuits; Milkbone is the dog equivalent of a Big Mac for her, an irresistible guilty pleasure. Probably Capitol Toyota has baby squirrels in a back room that are brought out for really hard sells.

During a lull in the negotiating, other Capitol Toyota employees wandered over, seemingly at random (yeah, right) to sweet-pat ZuZu. She was putty in their hands. First with this guy...

Then this one.

The final lease deal met with ZuZu's approval. As I feared, she wasn't as interested in the price as in the extra edible incentive Nate had put in the envelope.


In the end, ZuZu was happy with the new car she and Laurel drove off in.

Why not? She's got a whole inch of extra headroom in the back compartment; her stomach was full of Milkbone biscuits; she'd almost overdosed from patting by Capitol Toyota staff.

And since our dog doesn't have a credit rating, nor a bank account, my wife and I ended up paying for her purchase. 

Pretty doggone clever, Capitol Toyota.

Salem can't afford a $50 million-plus Police Facility

Given the many unmet needs here in Salem, Oregon, it's easy to visualize lots of ways to spend $50 million.

Which happens to be how much City officials have said a new police facility could cost (though they're now backing away from that estimate, probably because they want an even more lavish police facility).

For example, I recently went on a bicycle tour of Portland's vaunted neighborhood greenways. These are streets that have been renovated in various ways to make them more biking and pedestrian friendly/safer. The cost per mile is about $250,000. 

Salem currently has zero neighborhood greenways. Portland has 70 miles, I recall our tour guide saying. So it would cost $17,500,000 to bring Salem up to Portland's level in this regard. 

Regardless of how it'd be spent, $50 million would go a long way toward improving the quality of life in Salem. This has to be kept in mind as the City Council decides how to move forward with the recommendations of a police facility task force. 

Last night I testified about another unmet need during the public comment period of a City Council meeting. A Statesman Journal story, "Council receives recommendations on Salem police facility," contains some mentions of moi. 
Download Council receives recommendations on Salem police facility

The city council did not necessarily agree with the recommendations or support them. Acting to receive the task force recommendations means that they will be discussed in future meetings and staff sessions.

There was opposition to the recommendations, however, particularly over splitting a bond measure needed to raise money for the facility from another measure that would seismically upgrade the Vern Miller Civic Center.

Salem resident Brian Hines urged the council to go back to the original plan created by city officials.

"Build both a new police facility and seismically retrofit city hall and the Salem Public Library. There is no reason to delay making essential preparations for the Big One earthquake that is a matter of when, not if."

Hines also pointed to the immediate danger the building faces in the event of an earthquake.

"Consider the chart next to the Earthquake Timing section of the Wikipedia article about the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The intervals before six 'Big One' earthquakes have been studied, the most recent one being in 1700 — 315 years ago.

Here's the intervals for three of the six: 201 years, 250 years, 330 years. We're now at 315 years since the last Big One."

He asked a pointed question to the city council.

"Why would City officials put off seismic strengthening of city hall and the library when the next super-devastating earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest could strike at any moment?"

I can't really say whether spending $20 million to seismically strengthen City Hall and the Library is the best use of that much taxpayer money.

However, saving lives of employees and visitors to these buildings, including children at the Library, strikes me as being important --  much more so than spending an extra $20 million on an over-priced police facility. Like I said in my testimony, a devastating Big One earthquake that likely would pancake City Hall and the Library is a matter of when, not if.

You can read my entire testimony that I submitted to the City Council via the link below. I had to shorten it a bit in my verbal remarks to fit into the allotted three minutes for public comments.
Download Seismic retrofitting testimony

Here's how I ended my letter to the City Council:

A May 22 news release from the City of Salem says, “While the entire civic center campus needs seismic improvements, the task force recommended that the police station should be the priority. Police occupy cramped quarters on the civic center’s bottom floor.”

So apparently saving the lives of police department staff is viewed as more important than saving the lives of other Civic Center employees, along with the lives of visitors to City Hall and the Library, which could include children enjoying Storytime at the Library when the devastating Big One earthquake hits.

If it is unthinkable that the police department be reduced to rubble when the Civic Center “pancakes” after a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, why isn’t it equally unthinkable to allow other City of Salem departments, along with the Library, to suffer the same fate?

All City agencies, not just the police department, will be needed to function after a massive earthquake. Panicked citizens should be able to count on the Civic Center as a haven where disaster relief and emergency help are coordinated.

It makes no sense to allow the Civic Center to become rubble, rather than a refuge, a stable place in a ravaged community. The OPB report, based on the best available data and expert opinion, projects that restoring water and sewer services, and partial restoration of top priority highways, will take more than a year after the Big One earthquake hits.

Civic Center staff and facilities need to be part of the recovery efforts, not buried under a collapsed City Hall and Library. Please, make seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center a priority, not an afterthought. 

I got several questions and comments from City Councilors at last night's meeting. Tom Andersen, thankfully, understands the need to seek money for both a new police facility and seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center.

Unfortunately, other City Councilors and the Mayor seem determined to waste money on a $50 million-plus police facility that experts say could be built for no more than $30 million.

This means, in effect, that those City officials are willing to put the lives of Civic Center employees and visitors at risk when the Big One earthquake hits in order to have an excessively-priced "Police Palace," since the cost of seismically retrofitting City Hall and the Library is about $20 million.

Morally and ethically, I find this highly objectionable.

Hopefully the Mayor and City Council will recognize that it would be better to build a perfectly adequate $30 million police facility rather than a wasteful $50 million one, and spend the difference on strengthening City Hall and the Library so they don't collapse in a major earthquake.

Susann Kaltwasser left a great comment on the Statesman Journal story mentioned above. About all I disagree with is the need for a 100,000 square foot police facility. The City's original proposal called for 75,000 square feet, which seems adequate. Here's what she said:

As the city moves forward with the process on the new police facility the public needs to watch for two things: 1) don't let them move the process back behind closed doors; and 2) don't allow them to try to trick us into thinking we need to spend more money in order to get a quality product.

Salem does not need to spend more than $30 million on a new police building. Other cities have build their new police stations for an average of $250 a sq foot. That means $25 million for a 100,000 sq ft building and $5 million for the land. Any more than that and we are paying too much.

The Council wants us to keep an open mind on the price, but that can be a subtle message that they want to spend more. The Mayor still wants to see the police station to be either at the Civic Center or very close by. This means a parking garage ($15 million) and a skybridge perhaps for a couple more million. That's how they got to a $50 million preliminary price.

Citizens need to send the message that they will be scrutinizing any proposal with a fine tooth comb and will not be deceived!

Watch out and be aware! Stay involved and talk to your councilor. 

We need a successful bond measure that meets our needs and gets us the seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library as well as a new police facility. 

I couldn't mow steep slopes in a retirement community

After writing the title of this blog post, I thought "Most people wouldn't want to." Mow steep slopes with a heavy DR Field Mower. Like I did today. At the semi-old age of 66.

But just as I said back in 2006, that mower is my sweaty hell and heaven. OK, not the same mower. I've gotten a new model. Same difference, though, as regards my love/hate relationship with it.

As we get older, there’s a tendency to take things easier. I’m trying to resist it. 

There’s a point when my mowing hell turns to heaven. It’s when my shirt is soaked through with sweat, the water bottle strapped to my hip is empty, my socks are filled with burrs, my arms are bleeding from limb scratches, and I’ve told the trees how I feel about them by running through every creative string of obscenities in my repertoire.

Bliss. 

I’m hot. I’m dead on my feet. I’m dusty. And I feel undeniably real. There’s a reality to my blogging, to my meditating, to my talking with friends, to my Tai Chi, to my watching “The Daily Show.” And then there’s the fucking reality of spending six fucking hours under the July sun mowing fields filled with fucking trees that take a fucking lot of energy to miss.

It’s just so fucking wonderful. 

I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. I know that there will come a day—when I’m 70, 80, 90, some day—when I can’t do this any more. But Laurel will have to pry that DR mower out of my hands. Hopefully they won’t be cold and dead.

But there would be worse ways to go. I wouldn’t mind taking my last breath holding onto the handles of my longtime DR companion, out in a hot field with sweat rolling down my face, cursing those trees. 

Which, as I’m sure you know by now, I dearly love.

Nine years have passed since I wrote those words. The past couple of years we've hired someone to do the major field mowing. It isn't that I couldn't still do it; I just don't want to put in the time and energy now.

I do, though, still use the DR Mower (self-propelled, walk-behind) with its lawnmower attachment to cut the grass around our house, trails through our ten acres in rural south Salem, and some small areas of high grass.

The mower needs some work. But I kind of like how it is aging with character (my goal also).

A neighbor borrowed it some years ago to cut tall grass along his driveway. I didn't give him detailed enough instructions how to use it. He got the mower home by holding down both the brake and "go" levers. The brake has been iffy ever since. Too lazy to fix it, I often walk fast downhill to keep up with the mower, and dodge out of the way when it is rolling backwards downhill. 

Senior citizen fun! 

The differential lock broke. I have the replacement parts, but again, haven't got around to fixing it. So I can't lock the drive wheels for more traction. Then there's the grass discharge thingie, which came off after some plastic pieces snapped off. It's held on with wire, more or less. My fix-it job must not be to factory specs, because bits of twigs, leaves, and such sometimes hit me in the face.

Solution: strong dark glasses!

Today it seemed time to tackle a couple of grassy slopes that have been an awkward 'tweener for me: big enough to make using my Stihl trimmer sort of a pain; steep enough to make using the DR Mower a challenge. 

In the past, I've gotten out the trimmer when the grass became several feet tall. However, I'd been thinking that there must be a way to use the DR Mower on these 30 degree or so slopes (I have a handy level app on my iPhone which, pleasingly, is called Handy Level).

Unfortunately, I have no before and after photos. Just after. And even these are kind of a "you had to be there" deal.

Looking at the pictures, the slopes don't appear to be all that steep. But believe me, they are. The mower would tip over if I went sideways. It barely goes up them even with a 13 hp Briggs & Stratton engine and me providing some added pushing power.

On the right 1/4 of the photo is a slope by our front door that I've been mowing regularly. My big breakthrough with the rest of the slope, most of which has been cut previously with the gas trimmer, was realizing that, with care, I could mow a horizontal strip in front of the rocks, like I do with the area on the right side.

Then, even without removing the rocks, there was enough room to get a decent running start in short grass up the slope. I then could back the mower down in first gear without using the barely-usable brake much, adjust the angle of attack, and make another run straight up the slope.

It was satisfying to mow the last bit of tall grass and think, "Damn, man, you figured out how to do it!" I didn't exactly feel like DiCaprio in Titanic, but pretty close. 

Brimming with tall-grass-cutting confidence, I then headed for an equally steep slope next to our driveway. It too had been cut with my gas trimmer, except for the times I had the brush cutter attachment on the mower, and the differential lock working.

Once again, success!

Maybe it was because the ground was quite dry, but I was able to get enough momentum on the flat to impel the mower up the slope. Barely. As before, I'd let the mower roll backwards down the slope, angling it as it went so some additional tall grass was cut on the backswing, so to speak. 

What's strange, of course, while completely understandable, is how something that I really dislike doing is so enjoyable. I was tempted to say "satisfying" rather than enjoyable. However, there truly is a joy for me in doing something difficult and challenging.

Especially when it is physical, sweaty and needing a lot of muscle power. 

Last night I watched a "60 Minutes" episode featuring the owner of the CrossFit franchises, Greg Glassman. At one point he gestures to a fit woman lifting weights and says:

I'll deliver to you your genetic potential... Look at her. She was meant to look like that. That's what nature would have carved from her a million years ago. Or she'd have been eaten.

This resonates with me. Doing sweaty, hard, semi-dangerous stuff late into life is what our ancestors did, and what many people in the world still do -- to survive. 

So maybe this explains the primal "Yes!" I feel when successfully cutting tall grass on a steep slope with my DR Field Mower. It feels real, way different than working out in an air conditioned gym. 

I'd miss that feeling if we ever move to a retirement community, or a house in the city. There may well come a time when I won't mind giving up my mowing chores.

For now, though, I'm pleased to be doing just what nature would have demanded of me a million years ago -- if primitive primates had a DR Field Mower back then. 

Why being critical and contentious is a must for citizen activists

I've been called a "bomb thrower" by City officials and other members of the Powers-That-Be here in Salem, Oregon. 

As I said in a blog post last year, I don't see this as an insult. Quite the reverse, in fact.

I've been called a bomb-thrower by folks at City Hall. I guess this is supposed to be an insult. I consider it a compliment.

I'm proud to speak out loud and powerfully when I see stuff going on in Salem that shouldn't be. My goal is to throw truth-bombs that open up minds and demolish barriers to seeing what is happening behind closed doors.

Today I came across some passages in Jerry Coyne's new book, "Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible," that explained why my style of citizen activism is entirely in line with a scientific approach (broadly speaking) to addressing social problems.

Coyne is an evolutionary biologist. He views science as the only way of understanding what is true about the cosmos. Science, of course, isn't practiced only by professional scientists. Here's how he defines it:

What is "known" may sometimes change, so science isn't really a fixed body of knowledge. What remains is what I really see as "science," which is simply a method for understanding how the universe (matter, our bodies and behavior, the cosmos, and so on) actually works. Science is a set of tools, refined over hundreds of years, for getting answers about nature.

...My view of science as a toolkit is what Michael Sheerer meant when he defined science as a collection of methods that produce "a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation." That's as good a definition of science as any, but the best rationale for using those methods came from the renowned and colorful physicist Richard Feynman:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that.

Like everyone, scientists can suffer from confirmation bias, our tendency to pay attention to data that confirm our a priori beliefs and wishes, and to ignore data we don't like. But, like all rational people, we must admit the truth of what Voltaire noted in 1763: "The interest I have in believing in something is not a proof that the something exists."

The doubt and criticality of science are there precisely for the reason Feynman emphasized: to prevent us from believing what we'd like to be true.

I really liked how Coyne described his being thrown into the world of science when he started work on a Ph.D. in evolutionary genetics at Harvard. 

It's a rough and tumble world. The goal is to learn what is true, not to make people feel comfortable.

Being scientifically minded (I'm a Ph.D. dropout in Systems Science; completed the coursework, but not the other requirements), what Coyne says below is how I think citizen activism should be carried out.

Public officials, civic leaders, and legislators should engage with concerned citizens in much the same way scientific inquiry is conducted. After all, the goal is the same: to base action and understanding on what is true about the world.

Coyne writes (emphasis added in bold):

Shy and reserved, I felt as if I'd been hurled into a pit of unrelenting negativity. In research seminars, the audience seemed determined to dismantle the credibility of the speaker. Sometimes they wouldn't even wait until the question period after the talk, but would rudely shout out critical questions and comments during the talk itself.

When I thought I had a good idea and tentatively described it to my fellow graduate students, it was picked apart like a flounder on a plate. And when we all discussed science around the big rectangular table in our commons room, the atmosphere was heated and contentious.

Every piece of work, published or otherwise, was scrutinized for problems -- problems that we almost alway found... Eventually, fearful of being criticized, I simply kept my mouth shut and listened. That went on for two years.

But in the end, that listening was my education in science, for I learned that the pervasive doubt and criticality weren't intended as personal attacks, but were actually the essential ingredients in science, used as a form of quality control to uncover the researcher's misconceptions and mistakes.

Like Michelangelo's sculpturing, which he saw as eliminating marble to reveal the statue within, the critical scrutiny of scientific ideas and experiments is designed, by eliminating error, to find the core of truth in an idea. Once I'd learned this, and developed a skin thick enough to engage in the inevitable to-and-fro, I began to enjoy science.

For if you can tolerate the criticality and doubt -- and they're not for everyone -- the process of science yields a joy that no other job confers: the chance to be the first person to find out something new about the universe.

Salem Mayor disavows City of Salem press release

I didn't attend Mayor Anna Peterson's predictably-Pollyannaish "State of the City" address yesterday. I was worried that I'd suffer a massive overdose of sugary unreality. 

Reading the beginning of a Statesman Journal story about the event made me feel good about my decision.

The toughest question Salem Mayor Anna Peterson faced at her State of the City Address on Wednesday was what her favorite community activity to do in the city was.

...The atmosphere in the Santiam River Room at the Salem Convention Center was decidedly relaxed. The assembly of city officials, business leaders, educators and members of the police department made for a friendly crowd.

Typical for Salem.

Pretend that things are Just Fine at City Hall. Nothing to worry about. Hey, as the Mayor likes to say, we're the Collaboration Capitol! Everybody is on the same page about How Wonderful things are going, except for a few misguided boo-birds.

I'm proud to be part of that pseudo avian species. Seeing things clearly has always struck me as being more important than seeing things through rose-colored glasses. 

It'd take me too long to critique all the distortions in Peterson's State of the City talk.

For now I'll content myself with noting her decidedly-weird disavowal of a City of Salem press release about a planned new police facility, a subject I've blogged about many times. (A compendium of my posts and stories from other "media outlets" can be found here.)

On Monday, May 18, the City of Salem Facebook page posted the press release.

It described the final report of a Blue Ribbon (is there any other kind?) Task Force the Mayor appointed to consider plans for a police facility and renovations to the Civic Center after an initial $80 million proposal met with strong community resistance.

Some projected cost figures were mentioned in the release:

Total cost for a modern 100,000-square-foot public safety facility -- including elements such as purchasing land, design costs, equipment and furnishings -- would be in the neighborhood of $50 million. 

The mayor’s task force has discussed a potential $50 million bond, payable over 25 years to finance the public safety facility. But the size and terms of a bond measure will be determined only after an architect makes recommendations and Salem City Council completes its review.

If voters approved a $50 million bond measure, homeowners would pay about 32-cents per $1,000 assessed value. For example, the owner of a home with an assessed value of $200,000 would pay an annual assessment of $63.35.

So there were three mentions of a $50 million police facility in three paragraphs. That number was associated with "in the neighborhood of" and "potential," indicating that the number was approximate and could change.

On the same day as the press release, May 18, the Statesman Journal published a story, "Task Force urges new Salem police station," that was based on what the City of Salem press release had said.
Download Task force urges new Salem police station

Here's what the story said about the cost of a new police facility, which included a few typos:

The total cost [for] a facility of that size, including elements such as purchasing land, design costs, equipment and furnishings would be in the ballpark of $50 million.

The task [force] discussed a $50 million bond that's payable over 25 years to finance the public safety facility.

If voters approved a $50 million bond measure, Salem taxpayers would pay approximately 32 cents per $1,000 assessed value. This means a house valued at $200,000 would pay an annual assessment of $63.35.

Sounds pretty darn accurate to me. The reporter, Brandon Southward, said "in the ballpark of $50 million." This fits with the more-or-less tone of the press release in regards to that cost figure.

But in her State of the City address, the Mayor had a minor hissy-fit. (I say minor, having personally observed and heard about from others her major hissy-fits.)

In a portion of the speech dealing with the police facility, Mayor Peterson said:

The location and price are not known yet, so I caution you to not see the price quoted in the media as "the final price." It was only an early estimate.

Hmmmm. 

The price "quoted in the media" came from the City of Salem's own press release, which wasn't exactly ancient history. How can the Mayor call the $50 million cost estimate publicized by City staff on Monday, May 18 an "early estimate" just two days later on May 20?

That $50 million number in the press release obviously didn't pop up out of the blue.

A City staffer must have talked with someone knowledgeable on the Blue Ribbon Task Force before writing the press release, and/or conferred with other City employees working on this project. 

So it's strange that the Mayor would incorrectly say that the media, a.k.a. the Statesman Journal, had quoted the $50 million as "the final price." Nothing in the press release or newspaper story implied this -- that the $50 million was set in stone.

Something is happening here. Like Bob Dylan's Mister Jones, I don't know what it is. I've just got some reasonable guesses.

If the Mayor didn't like $50 million being cited as the possible cost for a new police facility, this means that she either anticipates the actual cost being considerably higher or lower. Thus she wants to disavow the press release number now in anticipation of when the higher or lower number comes to be.

Now, Salem Community Vision has been pressing for a $30 million police facility, along with $20 million in seismic retrofitting and other renovations to City Hall and the Library.

Mayor Peterson isn't fond, to put it mildly, of how successful Salem Community Vision has been in pointing out the flaws in her original $80 million proposal -- since there is good reason to believe that both a new police facility and Civic Center retrofitting/renovations can be done for $50 million.

It's unlikely, then, that the Mayor is anticipating that the final cost of a new police facility will be markedly less than $50 million. This would put her on the same side as Salem Community Vison, which is difficult to believe.

More likely is that Mayor Peterson wants to leave the door open to the final cost of a new police facility being more than $50 million. 

Listening to her remarks at the final Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting, it was clear that the Mayor is still enamored of building a police facility close to the Civic Center, and maybe even on the original Mirror Pond site that is part of the Civic Center.

Sure, this would go against several recommendations of the Task Force, including not building on the Civic Center campus and not using expensive underground or elevated parking for a new police facility.

But since building a police facility adjacent to or on the Civic Center campus would likely raise the cost above $50 million, I'm suspecting that this is the most likely reason Mayor Peterson objected to the City of Salem's own press release that mentioned this figure.

The police facility saga has had lots of twists and turns over the past years. I'm sure more are to come. Stay tuned...

Salem cyclists get a tour of Portland's neighborhood greenways

"Now we want to move to Portland."

I heard this from some people who had recently moved to Salem and, like me, had just finished a 10 mile tour of Portland's highly-acclaimed Neighborhood Greenways. They may not have been completely serious, but they sure sounded like it.

Hopefully Salem's City officials and Chamber of Commerce types will take those words -- Now we want to move to Portland -- to heart. People of all ages are putting more importance on favoring towns that are walkable and bikeable when deciding where to move themselves or a business.

So kudos to the Salem Bike Boulevard Advocates folks for organizing yesterday's tour, which was ably led by Greg Raisman of the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT). He's called a "greenways guru" in this Sightline piece, "How Portland's Neighborhood Greenways Evolved."

You can see Raisman doing his greenway guru thing in a 13-minute video I made from the Go Pro footage I took while cycling along -- which included several stops where Greg explained various features of the Neighborhood Greenway approach.

 

You'll see Angela Obery at the beginning and end of the video.

She's the main driving force behind Salem Bike Boulevard Advocates (which Raisman recommends renaming Salem Neighborhood Greenways Advocates, since not everyone rides a bicycle, but virtually everyone likes greenways).

I wrote about Angela's quest in a Strange Up Salem column, "Time to make Salem a bike-friendly town." It started out:

When it comes to riding a bicycle in Salem, most people are like me: desirous of doing this, while worried about how dangerous it is.

After all, this town has been designed to bow down before the Altar of  Vehicular Traffic Flow.

Making it safe and easy for bicyclists and walkers to get around has been an afterthought, getting occasional lip service in transportation plans without much follow-through commitment from City of Salem officials.

Angela Obery seeks to change things.

She’s a long-time resident of the Highland neighborhood who has formed a Salem Bike Boulevard Advocates group.

After talking with Obery I’m super-enthused about her vision. This could be a game-changer for enhancing our quality of life, along with making Salem more attractive to people and businesses thinking of coming here.

It was encouraging to see three City of Salem officials among the twenty-one Salemians who went on the tour: City Councilor Diana Dickey, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez, and Transportation Planner Julie Warncke.

Hopefully they were as enthused about what Portland is doing as everybody else was, and will be working to make Bike Boulevards (oops, Neighborhood Greenways) a reality in Salem.

These aren't bike paths indicated by lines painted on the side of streets, or dedicated multi-use trails separate from streets. They are, basically, streets themselves that have been greenway'd up at a comparatively low cost to make them pedestrian, bicyclist, and skater friendly.

You can see how pleasant they are to ride on in my video.

Here's a photo from a Salem Bike Boulevards Advocates post about the tour. Diana Dickey is on the front right. I'm riding the small-wheeled bike in the middle, my Go Pro camera wrapped around my chest.

My newly-acquired folding Bike Friday Silk worked great on the tour. I hadn't been able to ride it much until yesterday. The ten mile tour was a great way to see how the Silk did on city streets. In short, excellent. I really like the smooth quietness of the carbon fiber belt and NuVinci continuously variable transmission.

I also really liked riding on the quiet North Portland Neighborhood Greenway streets.

Sure, I was with a large group of experienced bicyclists who were led by one of the city's top bicycle transportation guys. So I figured that my chances of being run over by a car during my first foray onto big city streets in a long time were slim to none. 

But when Raisman took us down a regular bike path near the end of the tour, just a painted white line separating us from a busy street with lots of cars and trucks whizzing by, I realized how different that felt from the Neighborhood Greenway streets you'll see in my video.

I felt completely relaxed while on those traffic-calmed streets.

I wasn't on a bike path; I was on the street itself, feeling like me and my bike belonged there. I felt kind of nervous on the painted bike path street, as if I was an interloper into the World of Cars and Trucks where I didn't really belong.

A final observation: the ambience of North Portland reminded me a lot of the close-in Salem neighborhoods. Mostly older houses. Front porches. Mix of young and old. There just was more energy, more people moving around on foot or bike.

As I said at the beginning of the video, I could tell I wasn't in Salem by how many people were sitting outside at neighborhood gathering spots -- taverns, restaurants, parks -- enjoying a pleasant Sunday afternoon. 

Yes, this happens in Salem also. However, our town is much more autocentric than Portland is.

Portland's city government has worked hard to make people more of the centerpiece of transportation planning, rather than cars. This goes a long way toward explaining why Portland has more energy and vibrancy than Salem, and is viewed by most as a more appealing place to live.

People make a city lively and livable, not lifeless vehicles.

I'm not saying that Salem should become Portland. Just that Salem has a lot to learn from Portland. We need to bring the best of Portland to our town, notably including Neighborhood Greenways.

(Oh, I should mention that the highly skilled longboarder in my video is Cory Poole. He used to live and work in Salem. Now he lives in Portland, and still works in Salem. Cory is one of the founders of the NW Skate Coalition. One of their goals is to show how longboarding is a transportation option, not just a way to have fun and do tricks.)

Salem City Club talk: Media-inspired fear distorts reality

I hugely enjoyed today's Salem City Club speaker, David Altheide. His topic was "The Fear Factor Today: Media-inspired Politics of Fear in American Life."

A sociologist, Altheide has done a lot of academic research on how fear is used to manipulate the citizenry in this country. Politicians and corporations do their share, furthering their special interests.

The media help out by dramatizing risks that aren't really serious, while minimizing risks that are. 

Altheide discussed numerous examples of this. For example, if you're old enough (as I am), you'll remember the pictures of missing children on milk cartons. Amber Alerts are the modern equivalent. 

When parents are asked about their greatest fear regarding their children, what they worry about the most, kidnapping tops the list, followed by school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers, and drugs. However the largest risks actually are car accidents, homicide, and child abuse -- the latter two usually being caused by a family member.

So the most dangerous place for children isn't school, it is their own home.

The number of child abductions by strangers nationally is very small, around 100 a year, but since the media give these so much attention, parents wrongly are led to fear a small risk. If they want to really do something to protect their children, driving cautiously in a safe car should be the top priority.

Guns also came in for discussion by Altheide. It is no coincidence that the United States has by far the highest homicide rate of any industrialized nation. We also have by far the greatest number of guns. 

Obviously guns don't make us safer.

Just the opposite: ready availability of guns leads to many more gun deaths per capita than in other countries. Yet when people hear about someone being killed by a gun, they get afraid. And that fear leads them to buy a gun. 

Which leads to more gun deaths, and more fear, and more gun-buying. Great for gun manufacturers and the NRA. Not great for everybody else.

The media is complicit in this, Altheide said, especially TV news. Crime stories comprise 1/3 to 1/2 of local news telecasts. I can confirm this, my wife and I being habitual watchers of the 11 o'clock news on Portland's KGW station.

Almost every night, the first ten minutes or so is devoted to shootings, rapes, burglaries, accidents, fires, and other dramatic events. You'd think that nothing is happening in Portland except scary nasty stuff. I fast forward through this crap, being thankful we record the news on our DVR before watching it.

As with child abductions, the media sensationalize low risks while often downplaying less dramatic high risks. About halfway through Altheide's talk it dawned on me that fear isn't really the problem; it is being afraid of the wrong things.

Not surprisingly, my rather obvious Big Idea had also germinated in the minds of other Salem City Club attendees. After the talk several dozen of us stayed to ask questions of Altheide and make some observations of our own.

The first questioner brought up the same subject I'd been thinking about.

How is it that something we should be fearful about -- global warming -- gets comparatively little attention from the media compared to other things we shouldn't worry about much, like vaccine effectiveness, Ebola, domestic terrorist attacks, and (most recently) the safety of train travel?

Altheide said that part of the reason is the ever-increasing emphasis on videos. Facebook is full of them. So is, of course, television news. If people can't see it, they click on to something else. Like cute kittens. Or derailed train cars.

In my question/comment, I said that fearfulness has evolutionary advantages. Those early Homo sapiens who worried about genuine risks -- a rustling in the brush could be a lion! -- lived, while overly relaxed don't-worry types didn't.

Thus it isn't fear that is the problem, since justified fear can motivate us to take action to protect ourselves. The problem is being afraid of the wrong things. Which means we need to both be aware of our emotional reactions to potential dangers, while also rationally assessing the actual risk to ourselves and others.

Slow-moving mostly-unseen dangers like global warming and a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake (an increasing worry of mine) aren't readily apparent in the same way as a terrorist attack is. Yet preventing further global warming and preparing for the Big One earthquake will save many more lives than obsessing over minor risks that strongly push our emotional Yikes! button. 

I liked how Altheide took on sacred cows like the police and military. Support for these institutions is largely based on irrational fears. Crime rates are dropping. The United States faces few threats from the armed forces of other nations.

But those who want to cut funds for police departments and the Defense Department so more pressing national problems can be addressed face a daunting task: breaking through the Fear Barrier erected by those who profit from current spending patterns.

Sure, it is important for the United States to have adequate policing and military forces. However, we already imprison our citizens at a vastly higher rate than any other country. And we spend much more of our GNP on defense than any other country.

What largely keeps the gravy train going are those who profit from Americans being fearful of crime and military threats. For example, the for-profit corporations who run many prisons and defense contractors. Fear can be highly profitable.

Also, politically advantageous. 

We now know that invading Iraq wasn't necessary to keep Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons, because this wasn't a genuine risk. But the Bush administration skillfully used fear to justify the invasion after 9/11.

And the Patriot Act was passed in a climate of fear, leading to greatly diminished civil liberties and intrusions on our privacy. Yet Altheide noted that all of the very expensive NSA wiretapping has possibly resulted in no more than three terrorist plots being disrupted (and maybe none).

A post-talk questioner said that he had lived in another country for many years, twenty-five I think it was. After returning to the United States, he was struck by the pervasiveness of fear in our public discourse -- something that isn't evident in other countries. Why is this?

Altheide said that our media industries (such as Fox News), along with other corporate interests (such as the prison and security industry) have a vested interest in manufacturing fear. It sells newspapers and attracts television viewers. 

Near the end of his remarks, Altheide noted how the Catholic Church, and now other religions, have also prospered by promoting fear. Eternal damnation in hell is a powerful fear, as is the fear of not being saved.

Those fears, of course, almost certainly are fantasies. There is no hell, and no salvation.

Likewise, many other fears have no basis in reality. We need to learn how to worry about what is truly worrisome, while being properly skeptical of media outlets, politicians, corporations, and others who want us to be afraid so they can profit from baseless fears.  

(Here's an Arizona State University piece about Altheide's take on the media's "discourse on fear.")

More beautiful trees in downtown Salem cut down for no good reason

Another sad day for tree lovers here in Salem, Oregon -- the city that hangs a new Tree City USA banner in its city council chambers one day a year, then trashes trees the rest of the time. 

Today these beautiful trees on High Street, just south of the Elsinore Theatre, were chopped down. The area in front of the DaVinci restaurant and Croissant & Co. now looks like this:

I have no idea why the owner of the Ira's Alley building would want to uglify the streetscape by cutting down trees for no good reason. I can use those words, for no good reason, pretty confidently because I've been following the High Street tree saga for over a year.

On April 16, 2004, I wrote a blog post where I quoted a certified arborist, Elwood Newhouse, who inspected the three trees after I learned that the City of Salem was planning to allow the building owner to remove them.

In a phone conversation, Elwood told me "It's all bullshit." Which accurately describes the generally horrific way City officials justify removing healthy, large, beautiful downtown trees.

Remember the U.S. Bank trees?

I blew the lid on this 2013 tree-killing debacle in a tell-all report, Outrage:  The true story of how City officials and the bank president cut down five large, healthy, beautiful downtown trees for no good reason, and misled citizens about why they did it.

Well, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez is still up to his old tricks: allowing businesses to cut down street trees for no good reason. Here's what Elwood Newhouse told me about the High Street trees in two 2014 email messages.

The trees are healthy and are causing a very small amount of lift to sidewalk like a lot of other street trees. This problem can easily be fixed by grinding the small lift. Roots can be pruned along with the canopy for better structure. The trees have a great defense system and will tolerate some wounding. There are many things that can be done to preserve these trees. So in a nut shell in my opinion the trees are worth saving.

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

Okay I'm here again to look at the cavities of concern. The cavities were more than likely caused by sun scalding when some of the lower branches were removed for clearances. The wound wood that is forming around the cavities are a good sign the trees are healthy. Also looking at the last 5 years shoot growth is very consistent. This species of tree compartmentalize the wounds very well. If these cavities warrant the removal of these trees then we should clear cut Bush Park.

Well, Elwood was prescient.

This year the City of Salem didn't clear cut Bush Park, but it allowed Salem Hospital to clear cut an ancient urban forest across the street from Bush Park. I called this shameful in a January 2015 blog post. 

I'll also use the same word to describe what happened to the High Street trees this afternoon. It's infuriating to see City of Salem officials treat both trees and the tree-loving citizens of this town with such disrespect.

Check out my recent column in Salem Weekly, "Mayor to citizens: shut up about trees." Here's an excerpt:

The indefensible U.S. Bank tree removals led to the formation of a broad-based committee charged with coming up with revisions to the City’s street tree ordinance.

...The U.S. Bank trees were cut down because the final decision was made by Public Works Director Fernandez. The public records I got showed that lower-level City staff recognized how businesses exert “political pressure” on tree removal requests.

So the committee advised that an Urban Tree Commission be the final decider after the city’s Urban Forester and Public Works Director make their recommendations.

Mayor Peterson didn’t like that notion.

Illogically, she said that because the City Council hires the “right” City Manager, who chooses the “right” directors, who hire the “correct” people to work under them, “right” decisions are going to be made.

Wow, back to the middle ages.

It’s Salem’s version of the Divine Right of Kings. Obey, citizen peasants. Do not question the authority of Exalted Emperor Peterson and her functionaries who supposedly always make perfect street tree decisions.

This new downtown street tree-killing debacle puts the lie to that notion.

A certified arborist says the High Street trees were healthy. City officials cut them down anyway. Why? I have no idea. In their tree removal request the building owners complained about the trees dropping leaves on their awning.

Um, that's what deciduous trees do: drop their leaves in the fall.

So because citizens still can't challenge unjustified street tree removals, and Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director who allowed U.S. Bank to remove five large, beautiful, healthy trees on State Street for no good reason is still up to his I'll-do-whatever-a-business-owner-wants tricks, downtown's High Street is much uglier today than it was yesterday.

The sidewalk on the east side of the street is bereft of vegetation now.

A pile of wood chips is all that's left of this large, healthy, beautiful tree. Compare to the top photo above. Why the hell would anybody choose this rather than that? Only in Salem...

I found this really sad -- wood chips on top of a trash can, pitiful remnants of a tree that, until today, was providing shade, cooling, beauty, and bird habitat to High Street. And now is dead and gone, because of clueless people who don't understand that killing large healthy trees for no good reason is really, really stupid.

Meanwhile, right across the street, a row of trees is doing what the three now-dead trees were doing until they were needlessly removed: making downtown Salem a more pleasant place to visit, live, and work.

I'm really bothered by the cut-it-down and pave-it-over mentality of Mayor Anna Peterson and her anti-environmental City Council majority. Lots of other people in Salem are also.

When election time comes around, remember the High Street and State Street trees.

The current crop of City officials aren't doing this town any good by their destructive actions. What makes them think that trashing trees and uglifying downtown is going to enhance the attractiveness and economic vitality of Salem?

Be a Warrior of Strangeness

Like I said in a recent post about my last Salem Weekly Strange Up Salem columnn, I had a tough time figuring out what to say in it. Below is the column that I wrote before I decided to write a different one.

Be a Warrior of Strangeness is personal rather than political, as "Time to take back this town" was -- which appeared in the most recent issue of Salem Weekly.

I can't think of a better image to accompany this piece than... this photo of ME!

My wife took it at the 2013 Oregon Country Fair in Veneta, outside of Eugene. We'd bought masks at a fair booth. I really liked the look of this one.

The dangly "earrings" turned out to be mildly annoying as they clanked against my cheeks, but other than that -- the mask is ME!

Be a Warrior of Strangeness

Readers, I’ve enjoyed writing this column for the past two years. But Salem Weekly is moving in a new direction, so this will be my last Strange Up Salem offering. 

I will, though, be keeping my Strange Up Salem Facebook page active. 

So give it a “like” if you want to get my posts about what’s happening in town, strangeness-wise. And I’ll keep on blogging at www.hinesblog.com

It’s been tough to decide what I’d like to say in this final column. Which points to a truism that, though obvious, bears repeating.

Everything comes to an end. Including our lives. 

So while we’re here, enjoying our brief glimpse of a teeny-tiny corner of an unimaginably vast 14 billion year old universe, we need to live as vibrantly and intensely as possible. 

Like soldiers going into battle, unsure whether they will survive to see another day. After all, one day — and we don’t know which it will be — each of us won’t.

Picture yourself as a Warrior of Strangeness. Bold. Confident. Fearless. 

You are, as a recruitment saying used to put it, an Army of One. Nothing else in the history of the universe has ever manifested your qualities: mind, body, desires, talents, likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses.

Your moment-by-moment mission, because the cosmos demands this of every unique creature, is to fully express who you are. 

Yet we worry, “Oh, but I can’t. If other people saw me as I truly am, as I inwardly know myself to be, they’d think I’m really strange. I need to keep myself under wraps in order to fit in.”

News flash: Everybody already thinks you’re strange. Your hoped-for game of disguise is over before it had a chance to begin.

Ask your teenager. “Yeah, Mom, you’re strange.” Ask your spouse, your boss, your best friend. If they’re honest, everyone who knows you well enough to speak the truth will say, “You’re strange… in a good way.”

Each of us feels that our way of looking at the world is absolutely normal. After all, it isn’t possible to experience reality except through our own utterly unique consciousness and way of being.

Strangeness is our birthright. More: the essence of the cosmos. 

Almost certainly, no complex collection of molecules capable of being called alive is exactly the same as any other living entity. Welcome to The Matrix: you are the One… the one and only.

This isn’t the whole story, though. 

Every other person also is the One. We humans exist as the One and Many. Our strangeness is reflected and amplified as it is expressed in the company of our fellows.

Which means, don’t fear being different. 

Embrace every thought, feeling, urge, emotion, action, compulsion, quirk, eccentricity, and whatever else that is now, and always will be, a gift from the limitless depths of your personal treasure chest, Only Me.

Warrior of Strangeness, smile on. Stay strong. Be happy. Hope to see you on the increasingly strange streets of Salem.

Cheerful conversation in the Camp Sherman store

There's a bit of irony in the title of this blog post -- the cheerful. Yes, I always enjoy chatting with Roger and Kathy White, the friendly owners of the oh-so-charming Camp Sherman store in central Oregon.

But today Kathy and I talked about some uncomfortable subjects -- impacts of the impending Big One earthquake and nasty effects of global warming  -- after I finished paying for some essentials of life: wine, peanuts in the shell, newspaper, Camp Sherman t-shirt.

I'd asked her how the winter went in Camp Sherman. My wife and I hadn't visited our Forest Service cabin that we have a 1/4 ownership share in since last fall. 

"It was really nice," Kathy told me. "Quite mild." "I can believe it," I said. "When we drove over the pass, it was amazing to see how little snow there was."

I then asked her if she'd ever wondered if the springs that feed the beautiful Metolius River might dry up partially if global warming continues to result in more Cascades precipitation falling as rain rather than snow.

"What if the unknown source of the springs is from snow melt that no longer exists? Couldn't that lead to the Metolius river flow dropping considerably?"

Kathy said that she and her husband had thought about this possibility. It'd be disturbing, for sure.

Here's a photo I took of the upper reaches of the Metolius, not far from the spring-fed headwaters. The river is quite shallow here, less than a foot deep in most places. The logs were put in the river to enhance salmon spawning habitat. Notice the vegetation growing on them now, thanks to the near-constant water level.

So that's one of many "unthinkable" possible consequences of global warming. What once seemed so unlikely as to be almost impossible now has a decent chance of occurring. 

In a book I'm reading, "This Idea Must Die," I learned a new word: stationarity. Here's excerpts from the short essay by that name written by geographer Laurence C. Smith.

Stationarity -- the assumption that natural-world phenomena fluctuate with a fixed envelope of statistical uncertainty that doesn't change over time -- is a widely applied scientific concept ready to be retired.

...a growing body of research shows that stationarity is often the exception, not the norm. As new satellite technologies scan the Earth, as more geological records are drilled, and as the instrument records lengthen, they commonly reveal patterns and structures inconsistent with a fixed envelope of random noise.

Instead, there are transitions to various quasi-stable states, each characterized by a different set of physical conditions and associated statistical properties.

...And anthropogenic climate change, induced by our steady ramping-up of greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere, is by definition the opposite of a fixed, stationary process.

Thus climate change is going to bring us new definitions of normal. So-called "hundred-year floods" could start occurring every ten years. Ditto for hundred-year dry spells.

Not a cheery thought.

Neither was the subject Kathy and I also talked out: the Big One earthquake, something I've become more interested in after learning that City officials in Salem, where I live, seem to have lost interest in seismically strengthening our City Hall and Library so they won't fall down when, not if, a super-strong Cascadia subduction zone earthquake hits.

Kathy told me that she'd been to a meeting where earthquake experts talked about how the Redmond airport (fairly close to Camp Sherman) would be the prime place where emergency supplies would be flown into Oregon after a Big One earthquake.

Meaning, every large airport in Western Oregon would be unusable after the expected magnitude 8 or 9 earthquake. These occur every few hundred years in the Pacific Northwest. The last one happened in 1700.

We're due for another huge earthquake.

Could be tomorrow. Could be twenty years from now. But the Big One is coming, for sure. I said that I'd been to a talk where an emergency preparedness planner said that most bridges on i-5 would be unusable. Highways to the Oregon coast could be closed for a year or more, I recall the planner saying. 

This isn't exactly akin to an end to stationarity, since Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes have been happening for thousands of years. It isn't like global warming, which is causing a major change in the likelihood of weather events. 

But both the prospect of the Metolius River losing a large part of its water source, and Western Oregon being devastated by the Big One earthquake, are examples of catastrophes that seem to most people like they will never happen.

Hey, those things haven't happened in recent history, certainly not in the lifetime of anyone alive today, so what is the chance that they will happen soon? Seemingly... almost zero.

Not true. It isn't wise to base the future on the recent past. Science is our main way of seeing beyond our immediate personal experience to better learn what is coming next, and why. 

I told Kathy, "Talking about global warming and the Big One earthquake makes me feel good about being 66, rather than 16, since there's a much better chance that, given my age, I'll die before bad things happen. I worry, though, about our children and grandchildren. What kind of world will they inherit?"

Hopefully one where people did everything they could to prepare for disasters that have been foretold.

Hiding our heads in the sand may make us feel better, but we owe it both to ourselves and future generations to face difficult truths as squarely as possible.

Cirque du Soleil's Verakai makes me want to join the circus. At 66.

Last night my wife and I journeyed up I-5 to Portland's Memorial Coliseum, where we were hugely entertained and inspired by Verekai, a typically indescribable Cirque du Soleil production. 

Indescribable, because Cirque du Soleil productions touch me like no other show. 

Partly because they are live. Partly because they are creative beyond belief. Partly because the men and women on stage perform physical feats I wouldn't believe were possible, if I wasn't seeing them with my own two eyes.

Which, with Verekai, were attached to a body that was sitting in a front row seat on the floor of the auditorium, just a few feet away from the Cirque du Soleil stage. I'd splurged on the seats, wanting to get as up close and personal with the performers as possible.

My bottom line review: watching Verekai made me want to join the circus.

Not a real circus. The circus of Living Life Fully and Creatively. We all can do this.

Run away from our longstanding habits, anxieties, worries, inhibitions, and every other psychological hang-up that makes us afraid to express ourselves authentically, freely letting out what bubbles up from our creative springs within, and join the Circus of Life that offers up continuous performances, 24/7, at no charge, if we simply say Yes, Yes, Yes.

There was so much Yes on stage last night, I hesitate to speak about it. Too many words might dilute the feelings that still powerfully resonate with me after seeing Verekai. 

But, hey, I'll take the risk. After I share some videos that will do some wordless talking. 

 

This is the official trailer. Doesn't do justice to the live production, of course.

 

This, surprisingly, is a whole freaking 54 minute video of Verekai that someone took at a Fresno, California show. Better watch it before the copyright police notice it. Or maybe the Cirque du Soleil folks are going to allow it to be left up as a very-extended advertisement of sorts.

 

Maybe because I've played around with several kinds of swords and staffs in my martial arts/Tai Chi training, one of the performers I was most impressed with was a young baton woman, who I believe is world champion Arisa Tanaka.

Amazing! The small video in the bottom right shows her performing while the drummer in the live Verekai band does his thing. See below for a focus on Tanaka.

 

This is Tanaka performing at the 2012 World Twirling Championships. Hard to believe she got second place. I watched some of the video of the first place performer. I think Tanaka got cheated. 

Of course, with Cirque du Soleil the performers have gone beyond winning and losing -- though many, if not most, must be champion gymnasts, dancers, and other competitive athletes/artists.

It is about creativity, risk-taking, giving your all, expressing yourself to the utmost, embracing the moment, daring to show the world what only you can reveal.

We all can do that. Doesn't matter who we are or what we like to do. We can run away and join the Circus of Life, dazzling ourselves and others with the intensity of our performances.

Even if this be knitting, cooking, woodworking, golfing, playing cards, socializing, or whatever.

It isn't the what but the free-flowing style that allows us to break free of self-imposed bonds and be a star performer in our own personal production.

Earthquake readiness: will the Salem City Council choose to save lives?

Why would anyone not want to save lives of people who are at Salem's City Hall and Library when (not if) the "Big One" earthquake hits?

Great question. 

Citizens need to keep asking it, now that Salem Mayor Anna Peterson's hand-picked Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Police Facility has recommended that seismic upgrades to the Civic Center aren't necessary to pursue right now. 

Maybe mañana. Or the day, year, decade, or whatever after that. After all, it's just precious human lives at stake here. 

Many thousands of lives have been lost in Nepal recently after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the region. The Pacific Northwest is prone to periodic Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes which are the largest in the world. 

Wikipedia says the risk of a 8.0 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific Northwest could be as high as 37% during the next 50 years. An earthquake of that size would be twice as strong as the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated Nepal. 

Twice as strong. Check out the calculator. 

Scarily, a much larger subduction zone earthquake could hit us. Like, a 9.0 magnitude quake. Get ready to be shocked if you live around here...

Because a 9.0 magnitude earthquake is a freaking 63 times stronger than a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Imagine the destruction and deaths in Nepal. Then imagine an earthquake 63 times more powerful striking Salem. Which has a 10-14% probability of happening in the next 50 years.

I can't understand why the Mayor, City Council, and other civic leaders in Salem aren't doing everything they can to prevent City Hall and the Library from collapsing in a major earthquake, given the undeniable clear and present danger of this happening.

Oh, no, wait. I do understand.

At least, I've got a pretty damn good hypothesis about why, after seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library were called for, along with construction of a new police facility, spending $15 million to save lives when a major earthquake hits Salem now has been dropped in the Police Facility task force's final recommendations. 

I talked about this in "Why a new Salem police facility could cost many lives."

Disturbingly, at its last meeting the Task Force approved a motion that calls for a single bond measure (amount unknown) for a new police facility. There was no mention of seismic retrofitting of City Hall and the Library.

Do the Task Force members really believe that it is important to save the lives of police department staff when the Big One earthquake hits, but not the lives of other City of Salem employees, along with the lives of anyone visiting City Hall and the Library? 

Children. Families. Senior citizens. 

Here's the dilemma faced by the Police Facility Task Force, which seems to be the reason it is on track to recommend leaving people at City Hall and the Library at great risk of dying in a major earthquake:

(1) The Police Chief correctly has told the Task Force that an $80 million bond for a new police facility and seismic upgrades to the Civic Center is too high a cost for citizens to accept.

 

(2) Seemingly there isn’t a way to reduce the cost of seismic upgrades, $15 million or so.

 

(3) So the cost of the police facility has to be reduced to be sure there is public support for both building a new police facility and doing seismic upgrades.

 

(4) If this doesn’t happen, and seismic upgrades are left undone, many people could die at the Civic Center when the Big One earthquake hits.

 

(5) But many people on the Task Force still want an over-priced police facility, so this squeezes out the money that could be saved by building a lower cost facility, and using the savings for seismic upgrades. 

Outraged that saving lives of people who would be at the Library and City Hall when a major earthquake hits these unprepared buildings is a low priority for the Police Facility task force, I gave them an earful at their final meeting a week ago. 

I told the task force members that if they try to get Salem voters to approve a public safety bond levy for a new police facility that ignores the need to seismically strengthen City Hall and the Library, I'd strongly oppose that bond -- doing whatever I could to urge citizens to vote against it on moral grounds.

Today, Salem Community Vision, a group I'm proud to be a member of, told the Mayor, City Council, and members of the Police Facility task force pretty much the same thing.
Download SCV seismic press release May 2015 PDF

Here's some excerpts:

Salem Community Vision strongly supports retrofitting buildings at the Civic Center — Library, City Hall, parking structures  — to modern seismic standards. This is a must, not a maybe; a do-now, not a sometime-in-the-future. Saving lives when, not if, a major earthquake (the “Big One”) hits has to be a top immediate priority for the City of Salem.

 ...Two primary reasons have been offered for a new police facility: the inadequacy of the current cramped Police Department headquarters on the ground floor of City Hall, and the near-certainty that the Department will be crushed under a “pancaked” City Hall when the Big One earthquake hits.

If it is imperative that the Police Department be moved out of City Hall because of the likelihood that the building will collapse in a major earthquake, Salem Community Vision believes it is equally important to protect others working at and visiting the Civic Center, including children, families, and the elderly at the Library.

Salem Community Vision opposes any attempt to seek funding for a new police facility that does not include money for seismically retrofitting the Civic Center. This was the original plan of City officials, but seismic strengthening of the Library and City Hall now has been dropped from the recommendations of the Police Facility Task Force, seemingly in an effort to reduce the cost of a bond measure.

This is wrong. 

A new police facility can be built for much less than the City’s original plan proposed. Cost savings should come by eliminating unneeded police facility building features, such as underground parking or a parking garage. It also should be properly rather than excessively sized. Doing this will enable a $50 million bond measure to be presented to voters that includes funds for both a new police facility and seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center.

I've closely followed the ins and outs of planning for a new police facility and seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library. There are 27 HinesSight blog posts on this subject listed on the Salem Community Vision web site. 

I haven't heard any good reasons why seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center buildings has to be put off.

A lame excuse was offered at the last Police Facility task force meeting when someone said that moving the Police Department out of City Hall would have to occur before seismic upgrades could be done. Therefore, illogically, this person said a new police facility should be built first, then the seismic upgrades could be done later.

Someday. Mañana. 

I said illogically, because, duh, of course people working at City Hall and the Library almost certainly would need to be moved out before major structural strengthening of the buildings could occur. City officials have said that this could happen in stages, with certain departments moved into temporary quarters when their part of the building was being seismically strengthened.

Nobody is talking about building a second City Hall to temporarily accommodate employees during a seismic retrofitting process.

Likewise, seismic strengthening of City Hall and the Library could be started before a new police facility is built. If the new police facility isn't ready for occupancy by the time seismic strengthening of the Police Department part of City Hall is scheduled to be done, then find temporary quarters for the Police Department -- just as will be done for other City of Salem staff who work at City Hall. 

Anyway, now the saving-lives ball is in the Mayor and City Council's court.

The Police Facility task force has whiffed on recommending seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library. A Salem Community Vision colleague has warned that this could be viewed as "negligent homicide" if City officials choose to ignore the urgent need to seismically strengthen those buildings and adjacent parking structures.

Strong words. But appropriate, as a metaphor at least. I might go with involuntary manslaughter though, which is bad enough.

To me, and Salem Community Vision, it isn't right to stand by and do nothing when experts are warning that doing nothing in the face of the coming Big One earthquake is the worst thing to do. 

Consider the chart next to the Earthquake Timing section of the Wikipedia article about the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The intervals before six "Big One" earthquakes have been studied, the most recent one being in 1700 -- 315 years ago.

Here's the intervals for three of the six: 201 years, 250 years, 330 years.

We're now at 315 years since the last Big One. Why would City officials put off seismic strengthening of City Hall and the Library when there is a good chance the next super-devastating earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest could strike at any time?

Citizens need to keep asking this of the Mayor and City Council. I sure am glad Salem Community Vision is pressing them on this life-saving question.

Our yard is doing its best to enlighten me

Over on my philosophical blog, Church of the Churchless, I wrote yesterday about "How our non-easy-care yard enlightens me."

I don't really believe in enlightenment. But I'd still like to be enlightened.

Just seems like a cool state to be in. Akin to stoned, I suppose (a state of being I'm much more familiar with), but without having to imbibe psychoactive substances. 

So I like to think that our yard is enlightening me, chore by chore. After 25 years of taking care of our non-easy-care property in rural south Salem, Oregon, I've had plenty of time to ponder the Meaning Of It All.

For a long time I envisioned that what I was doing with all my mowing, fertilizing, weeding, planting, chopping, trimming, and such was keeping our yard in a condition that we could sit back and enjoy after all the work was done.

Yeah, I know. That sounds stupid, doesn't it? I can't believe that I actually believed this for so long, because it never came to pass. 

OK, not so much never, as rarely.

...Today, as I was watering, mowing, and edging, I was struck more than ever by a truism whose truth I continually keep remembering and forgetting, remembering and forgetting, remembering and forgetting.

(Maybe enlightenment is doing neither?)

As soon as I make a distinction between what I'm doing, and the hoped-for enjoyment produced by what I'm doing, I'm screwed. Then I'm on the Hamster Wheel of Happiness where, I imagine, just one more freaking movement of my paws will result in me getting to a blessed state of rest. 

Problem is, I never get there. The big wheel of my life just keeps on turning, exactly as Tina Turner said way back when.

Doing my yard maintenance thing this afternoon, I felt more of my someday illusions falling away.

All of the enjoyment I'm ever going to get from our yard, every bit of it, is part and parcel of me wrestling the mower around tight corners, edging the grass with dry dust and bark flying up and hitting me in the face, carrying heavy bags of fertilizer around, digging holes for new plants in rocky hard clay soil. 

For more of my musings about what our yard is teaching me, check out the full post, which includes quite a few other photos. 

I enjoy sharing photographs of our yard in part because my wife and I put a heck of a lot of time and effort into working on it, yet since (1) we live in a rural area, and (2) our house is at the end of a steeply sloping driveway, pretty much invisible from the road, few people see it. 

Almost ten years ago I pleaded in another post, "Look at our yard, please!"

We are slaves to our beautiful yard. Don’t get me wrong: we love our servitude. Up to a point. 

It’s just that the older we get, the crazier it seems to be to lavish so much time and effort on maintaining Garden Poet-created landscaping that, mostly, just Laurel and I see.

For we are not the most social of human beings. We rarely entertain (except ourselves) and our rural neighbors are entirely out of sight. Thus when I divide the work we put into the yard by the number of people who visually enjoy the fruit of our labors, the result is miniscule. 

However, it dawned on me that if I post these photos, and X number of people look at them, hopefully getting at least a glimmer of “ah, nature” from the images, then our yard’s enjoyment cost/benefit ratio has improved to that degree.

Interesting, how back in 2005 I used the word "crazy" to describe our devotion to our non-easy-care yard. Last summer, in 2014, I'd found a way to convert that craziness into something positive. Here's how I put it in "The joy of being crazy -- in a sane way."

Handling my large self-propelled DR mower this afternoon, spending more than an hour cutting tall grass in both our lawn and walking trails, I kept thinking "This is crazy." I often think that when doing chores on our property.

Other senior citizens head to condos or small houses at our age.

They don't spend nearly as much time as we do on home and yard maintenance. (My wife's current garden battle is with an unusually large infestation of voles, small burrowing creatures who are a pain to deal with.)

But recently I've come to a different realization of what someone saying "You're crazy" often means: You're different. Meaning, you have a way of looking at the world that is so unlike mine, I can't understand how what you're doing makes sense.

This puts a whole other spin on those two words. Mowing away today, I realized that I enjoy taking care of our ten acres as much or more than I dislike it. 

I feel like I've been married to our property so long, we've established a relationship like many old couples have: outwardly caustic, inwardly loving.

You know, like when the wife says "Oscar is a goddamn pain in the butt; he drives me crazy; I should have married my boyfriend in high school rather than this old coot; I've been able to live with Oscar for fifty years but now I'm praying the Good Lord will take me so I don't have to listen to his snoring any more."

So, yeah, it's crazy for us to keep driving ourselves, um, crazy by keeping on doing what we have to do on our property. Yet for now we wouldn't have it any other way. Still, I can completely understand why other senior citizens chuck it in and head for some sort of Retirement Village.

However, they are them and we are us. 

Well, now I've got a new way of looking at our yard: it's my wordless, enigmatic, entirely natural Zen master.

It's either guiding me toward enlightenment, driving me insane, keeping me mentally and physically healthy, or pushing me into an early demented grave.

Hard to tell. Could be all of the above. 

Salem Statesman Journal daily circulation in steep decline

Everybody knows that daily newspapers are in trouble.

Declining readership and shrinking advertising revenue are causing layoffs, along with stimulating papers to redefine their journalistic mission in an increasingly online world. That 2014 piece is pretty amazing:

Here’s a quick reminder that, despite the upbeat story lines we’ve heard about the greater media business during the past year or so, most newspapers are still very much in free fall. At the American Enterprise Institute’s Carpe Diem blog,

Mark J. Perry finds that print ad revenues are now the lowest they've been since 1950, when the Newspaper Association of America began tracking industry data. Again, that's 1950, when the U.S. population was less than half its current size and the economy was about one-seventh as big. Revenues are down more than 50 percent in just the past five years alone.

Circulation figures for individual newspapers are difficult to come by. Trade secret, I guess. I also suspect that newspapers aren't eager to let current and prospective advertisers know how much their circulation is dropping.

Thus I was pleased when someone with access to several sources of circulation data for Willamette Valley newspapers sent me circulation figures for 2008 through 2014. 

These figures are as comparable as possible between newspapers, but not completely so. They represent subscribers and single copy sales for daily circulation, which doesn't include Sunday. In short, they're the best this knowledgeable source of circulation data could come up with. 

The overall trend during the seven years is what I find most interesting.

Portland Oregonian:
2008 - 309,464
2014 - 162,599
47% decline

Salem Statesman Journal
2008 - 46,826
2014 - 27,859
41% decline

Eugene Register-Guard
2008 - 68,727
2014 - 43,663
36% decline

Corvallis Gazette-Times
2008 - 11,768
2014 - 8,607
27% decline

Each of the daily newspapers had a marked decline in circulation from 2008 to 2014. The Statesman Journal, here in Salem, dropped 41%.

I'm not sure if online-only subscribers are included in these figures. Regardless, it seems virtually certain that the number of people ditching their daily print community newspaper is much higher than those who choose to read the paper solely online.