HinesSight

Salem suffers from linear, unimaginative, more-of-the-same thinking

Do I have a New Year's wish for Salem, Oregon? Oh, yeah, I sure do.

This long-time resident -- I've lived in and near Salem for 38 years -- hopes everybody in this town, but especially our Mayor, City Councilors, and other city officials, will become way more creative, inventive, and non-linear in their thinking about how to make our area better.

For a great example of how things have gone wrong with prior assumptions that the future will, and should, be like the past, check out a recent Salem Breakfast on Bikes post: "Our Habits in Modeling and Overbuilding." 

Let's take a tour through a couple of local historical examples of planning that seemed "wise and prudent" at the time, but which history has shown in fact to be far from wise and prudent. Consistently, it seems we overbuild things based on aggressive modeling.

Modeling Parking Demand
Back in the 1970s, it seemed wise and prudent to build big, public parking garages downtown. Unfortunately we have found that we don't need them all or we don't need them as big.

There's a huge surplus of parking in City garages.  At peak the Liberty Parkade is about 60% full, and the rest operate under 50% full at peak. And the Urban Renewal Agency struggles with a substantial budget deficit in the parking district.

The garages themselves are also holes of under-productive land and building in the urban fabric of downtown.

Our parking garages are a clear example of overbuilt infrastructure.

Modeling Future Driving
Throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and even 2010s, it has seemed wise and prudent to plan and build big, wide public roads.

The traffic modeling that "proved" the need for them has totally broken down, however. Previous and stubborn assumptions about constant growth and about the rate of growth are almost certainly wrong. Even the highway-happy Feds are down-sizing projection models. And in fact a Wisconsin Judge recently ruled that projections for a highway expansion were unfounded.

But our current planning here hasn't caught up this structural change, and we are currently planning for a half-billion dollar bridge, whose annual debt service is estimated to be $45 million a year for 20 years, but which we will likely not need.

Read the entire post. It goes on to talk about planning for a new $80 million or so Salem police facility.

A few years ago a 75,000 sq. ft. building was proposed, which is about 50% larger than the size of the current police facilities. Now a City Council subcommittee has voted for a 150,000 sq. ft. police facility based on unrealistic more-of-the-same assumptions about population growth, the need for more police officers, and policing approaches over the next 30 years. 

Philosophically and scientifically, planning in this town is way off track. Why? Because almost always, the future won't be like the past. This is especially true in our modern fast-changing human world.

Yet our current Mayor, Anna Peterson, and her compliant City Council majority are prone to linear thinking. So have most previous administrations at City Hall. Indeed, so are most of us individuals, because we find it difficult to break out of the Box of the Present Moment and Past Experiences.

I'm re-reading a marvelous book, "Stumbling On Happiness."

The hard cover book jacket says, "In this brilliant, witty, and accessible book, renowned Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions."

Here's a passage from the chapter I read this morning:

Because time is such a slippery concept, we tend to imagine the future as the present with a twist, thus our imagined tomorrows inevitably look like slightly twisted versions of today. The reality of the moment is so palpable and powerful that it holds imagination in a tight orbit from which it never fully escapes.

Presentism occurs because we fail to recognize that our future selves won't see the world the way we see it now. As we are about to learn, this fundamental inability to take the perspective of the person to whom the rest of our lives will happen is the most insidious problem a futurian can face.

When Gilbert says "our future selves," he's speaking about the always-altering Me who we will see in the mirror months, years, or decades from now. But we can also apply this term to mean the changing selves who will inhabit Salem in the future.

Some of these selves will be ourselves, the current residents of Salem who have simply become older. Others will be newcomers -- children born here, people who move here. 

All of these "future selves" are going to be different from the "current selves" who inhabit Salem now. They will have different desires, needs, values, priorities, feelings, thoughts, ways of living and being.

Yet as Gilbert stresses in his book (which is based on solid scientific research):

We predictably underestimate how differently we will feel in the future...We make mistakes when we compare with the past instead of the possible. 

Great advice. Compare with the possible, not the past. 

This helps us escape from the more-of-the-same trap -- believing that either (1) the future should be like the past, and/or (2) the future will be like the past. Unfortunately, policy makers here in Salem continue to be captured by both beliefs.

The Breakfast on Bikes blogger correctly points out that public downtown parking garages were overbuilt, and currently are underused. Also, that both nationally and locally, traffic projections have been way too high, given changes in driving habits.

Yet observing City Council meetings, I see Mayor Peterson and most councilors keeping on with the same old linear thinking. What was, will be. What was, should be. 

They fail to understand that each new generation of "selves" looks upon the world differently. Also, that same-person selves change too as we grow older. My wife and I, who are both in our sixties, share values with younger people in their twenties and thirties (albeit for somewhat different reasons).

We like diverse compact mixed-use areas that are highly walkable and bikeable. We want the option of going carless, which requires quality mass transit for longer trips. We're concerned about preserving the natural environment.

Along this line, today Salem Breakfast on Bikes put up another thought-provoking post, "Are the Mill Creek and Salem Renewable Energy Office Parks Already Obsolete?"

Different focus, same theme. The future isn't like the past. Get outside the box of linear thinking.

Which brought up a thought... an anecdote about my time in Portland State University's Systems Science program back in the 1970's. (I became a Ph.D. dropout, but finished the course requirements; so you can call me "Not quite Dr. Hines"; or, better, "Brian").

I was sitting in the front row of a small seminar-like class taught by Magoroh Maruyama, a professor in the program who had a bit of a Zen master in him. Another student asked whether taking another class he taught had a prerequisite.

Maruyama jumped up, dashed to the blackboard, grabbed a piece of chalk, and emphatically said (almost yelling), "No prerequisites! That is not systems science! We start here, and then we go anywhere!!" as he started with a point and drew an expanding circular maze of scribbles with no discernible pattern.

I've forgotten a lot about what I learned about Systems Science. But I sure remember that moment when Professor Maruyama demonstrated how reality tends strongly toward creative non-linearity rather than predictable straight lines.

Mayor Peterson and the Salem City Council need to learn the same lesson.

How to make Crock Pot Pot with coconut oil

Knowing what my interests are, a friend just sent me a link showing how to make a cannabis edible out of ground marijuana buds/leaves and coconut oil -- with a crock pot.

Since edibles and extracts can't be legally purchased here in Oregon by "recreational" users until late in 2016 (currently only those with medical marijuana cards can buy these products), this is a way to make your own. 

I'll also share a video that extols the benefits of coconut oil in cannabis cooking. Put on your apron and fire up the crock pot!

 

 

Swans at flooded Minto Brown Island Park: unexpected beauty

Yesterday I'd just started riding my StreetStrider outdoor elliptical bike at Salem's rural'ish Minto Brown Island Park. Coming to a flooded area just west of Parking Lot 1, I saw a woman with her smartphone out, taking photos of an unexpected sight.

Two swans. 

I'd seen the swans a few days before, when I was riding at Riverfront Park. They were hanging out by the dock in the Willamette where the sternwheeler ties up.

(I'm assuming these are the same swans, since until now I've never seen any swans out and about in the wild here in Salem.)

Some kayakers were keeping a distance from the birds, which must be Mute Swans. Non-native to North America, this pair may have escaped from a captive life. I found a 2007 Oregonian story, "State wildlife officials worry about invasive swans, including two at Salem Retirement Home."

Hidden Lakes Retirement Village, if you're missing some swans, check out these photos.

They didn't seem wary of people. When I walked to the water's edge to get as close as possible to them, the swans swam closer. I had a feeling they were looking to be fed. But the Oregonian story describes their temperament, which isn't shy.

Although the swan's population is small and scattered in Oregon, evidence from other states proves that the birds can spread and multiply quickly, driving away native swans and other waterfowl.

"They are the bullies of the wetlands," said Jim Gores, an invasive species and wildlife integrity coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "They have a temper and attitude that you would not believe."

l had a good time engaging in my first iPhone swan photography experience. These are beautiful birds with very expressive necks, of course.

Pretty much by chance, I got a photo of them looking all synchronized and ballet-like. 

Soon after, the swans were back to doing their own thing.

Then I got a headless swan photo. 

Here's a 47 second video of the pair:

It was great to experience this swan surprise. Such is the benefit of keeping Minto Brown Island Park as natural as possible, along with the rest of Salem. 

Our predictable so-called "built environment" typically doesn't make you stop in your tracks and go, Wow! 

Yet nature often does bring us surprising wow-moments, being largely uncontrollable.

Flooding just happens at Minto Brown when it rains a lot. Animals just do what they feel like doing at the park. 

Which reminds me of a previous blog post: "On the need for wild places, and the wisdom to preserve them."

But here's the beauty of nature: wildness can be perceived everywhere, even in the most urban environment. Craig reminded us of that, saying that bald eagles can be seen flying over downtown Salem. If you look up.

It's the looking that is key. Seeing the wild around us with a sort of poetic eye, one that groks our intimate connection with the wildness of nature. 

Cowspiracy movie presents powerful reasons to go meatless

I'm no psychic. But it doesn't take any ESP abilities to say that most of the people reading this ate meat today -- Christmas. 

My wife and I didn't. Nor do we ever. 

Which explains why we felt a pleasing sense of self-satisfaction when we watched "Cowspiracy" at the Salem Progressive Film Series last week, since the basic message of the documentary is that eating meat and fish is one of the most environmentally destructive actions a person can engage in. 

The "spiracy" part of the title comes from the assertion that environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace have been deeply reluctant to publicize the connection between eating meat and destruction of our planet.

After all, as the movie says repeatedly, how we choose to feed ourselves is a highly personal question that's fraught with cultural implications. 

Having been a vegetarian since 1970, my 45 years of abstaining from meat and fish have taught me how true this is. When my daughter, Celeste, was born in 1972, my uncle kept telling me that her health would suffer if raised vegetarian. 

Her pediatrician also was skeptical. But now Celeste is a trim and fit 43. Her own daughter, Evelyn, also has been a vegetarian since birth and is doing fine at the age of eight.

So for most people there's no health reason to eat meat. And anyone who sees Cowspiracy will be exposed to lots of reasons why livestock and fish production is doing terrible things to Earth's ecosystems. 

Here's what the movie's co-director, Kip Andersen, said in an interview:

Well, I thought I was doing everything I could to help the environment--driving less, riding a bike, taking short showers. And then I found out a UN report study that our diet and raising animals for food livestock creates more human-caused greenhouse gases than all the transportation put together.

And then that led me on a journey of discovering that not only that, but this one industry is the leading cause of rainforest destruction, water consumption, water pollution, ocean dead zones, and species extinction, and basically across the board, and then to find out that our world's leading environmental organizations--Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Oceana, all these groups, they don't mention this anywhere. And it seemed, if anything, they might have been covering it up.

Apparently because those groups don't want to irritate their meat-eating supporters. There's also a hint in the movie that livestock producers give money to environmental organizations with the understanding that the groups will downplay the negative effects of meat and fish production.

(It doesn't matter, by the way, if wild fish are being eaten; Cowspiracy says that catching wild fish leads to huge numbers of "unintended kills" and the consequent depletion of fish populations.)

Our local alternative paper, Salem Weekly, had a good writeup on the movie. But it included a bit of skepticism.

The movie ends with a note of optimism, perhaps required in such a pessimistic film, but which might be questioned by viewers shaken by the message. Also, some facts and figures come so fast and furious that the source of any particular assertion is not always clear – a problem when a film makes such strong claims.

Yes, it's true that strong claims are made. To their credit, the moviemakers devote a page on the Cowspiracy website to documenting the sources of facts presented in the film. I didn't see or hear anything that made me think this can't be right. 

But since I've been a vegetarian for so long, and have read so much about the harmful effects of meat-eating, I wasn't shocked by how emphatically Cowspiracy calls upon people to give up eating meat and fish if they consider themselves environmentalists.

I do, though, still eat some dairy products. And the makers of Cowspiracy tout a vegan diet -- given how poorly cows are treated in the process of milk production, along with health and environmental reasons.

I typically eat yogurt every day. After seeing the movie, though, I got some soy yogurt and found that I liked it just as much as the regular variety. I doubt that I'll ever become a full-blown vegan, yet cutting down on the small amount of dairy products I eat (I drink soy milk) now is on my to-do list.

Interestingly -- could this be a sign from the Veggie Gods? -- the day after I saw Cowspiracy, I came across a bunch of links related to diet and the environment during my usual Internet browsing. 

Take a look at these if you need more convincing that meat-eating is bad both for you and the planet.

Food and Climate Change (David Suzuki Foundation)
Agriculture Was Left Out of the Paris Deal, But That Won't Stop Countries From Taking It On (Climate Progress)
A New Year resolution that's good for you and the planet: stop eating meat (The Guardian)
Michael Pollan on how America got so screwed up about food (Vox)

Here's the Cowspiracy trailer, which focuses on the conspiracy aspect of the movie. The next You Tube video presents the facts in Cowspiracy.

 

 

2015 Hines Christmas Letter released to mild applause

clap... clap... clap 

I'm pretty sure I hear three sentient beings applauding today's release of our annual Christmas Letter -- me, my wife, and our dog (all three of whom are, not surprisingly, featured in it).

Otherwise, who knows? Christmas letters printed on paper and mailed to people seem to be going the way of buggy whips. 

But traditionalists that we are, in some ways, every year we decide to keep on doing the Christmas Letter thing -- even though we actually title our missive "Holiday Greetings" given our secular scientific leanings.

I do, of course, also share the Christmas Letter electronically. Which I'm doing here. 

If you're excited about reading our 1995 - 2014 Holiday Greetings -- some of them are masterpieces, in my utterly unbiased opinion -- they reside in an annually updated 2004 post, aptly called "Collected Christmas Letters."

As often is the case, there's a little something to offend sensitive readers in our 2015 Christmas Letter. Just a little, though. 

Enjoy. (I'll also copy in the content for easier non-PDF file reading.)
Download 2015 Christmas Letter PDF
-------------------------

2015 Holiday Greetings from Laurel and Brian

This year we had trouble dealing with someone in our household who is at an “awkward age.” Namely, ourselves — since it’s become clear to us that Awkward Age is the entire period between birth and death.

With Brian being 67, and Laurel, um, younger, we’ve started looking at retirement communities. After all, at some point the insanity of maintaining our non-easy-care ten acres will settle into our steadily aging brains and bodies.

Unless the boundary between crazy and sane becomes blurred. Or maybe, doesn’t even exist. We’re talking state-of-mind here, not objective reality. 

We remember a woman telling us a supposedly true tale of a man who had a terminal tumor that affected the part of his brain which enabled him to know that he was going to die. So he’d walk out of a bad-news doctor visit all happy!

Crazy or sane? We don’t know. Just seems like a good way to go.

Here’s the thing that bothers us about retirement communities: we’ve found they’re full of old people! Creeps us out. Maybe we both have a brain tumor that prevents us from feeling we’re old. If so, that’s great.

For a long time we thought our rural house and property eventually would (1) crush us, or (2) make us happy. But why not ditch the “or” for “and”? 

Some retirement communities we’ve visited do just about everything for you. “To hell with that,” we say. 

Brian enjoys walking on the edge of our roof with a backpack blower, getting leaves out of the gutters. Laurel likes to creep through the trees and brush, looking for poison oak and blackberry starts. 

Recently we were talking with a neighbor guy who had an attitude like Brian’s: “I don’t want to live in a place where I can’t pee in my front yard.” Right on, brother! Spoken like a true lover of country living. 

Of course, it’s socially acceptable for dogs to pee pretty much wherever they want outside. But not to be off-leash, another reason we’re reluctant to move. ZuZu runs free on most of her dog walks: a joy for her, though not for the squirrels.

ZuZu has been getting all trained-up via classes Laurel has been taking at the Willamette Humane Society, where she still volunteers as a dog walker. Many tricks are in her canine repertoire, though our Talented Furry Child sucks at item recognition. Like between three dog toys — ball, bone, ring. 

Most mornings our living room echoes with Laurel saying, “Bring the ball, ZuZu… No, the ball… the ball… Yes! … Good dog!… You brought the ball!”

Mommy is so proud. While Brian sips his coffee, thinking, “If a monkey typing randomly can produce the works of Shakespeare in an infinite time, ZuZu can fetch the right one of three items in a minute.” (However, ZuZu excels at searching the house for a vanilla-scented toy!)

Our citizen activism is still at a high level. Cranky Old People like us are helping to change the world, one shaky, drooling step at a time.

Brian had a logo made for his Strange Up Salem Facebook page, which has gotten almost 2,200 “likes” from people who realize how desperately their town needs a big dose of strangeness. (There’s good reasons Oregon’s capital is referred to as So-Lame.) 

Now he can wear a Strange Up Salem t-shirt and cap, and drink coffee from a Strange Up Salem mug, when he writes his rants against the irritating imbecilic idiocy of what the right-wing Mayor and City Council are doing now. Naturally, given his 45 years of daily meditation and commitment to all-accepting mindfulness, Brian does this with a loving intention.

Likewise, Laurel doesn’t dislike religious people. Especially those who are reading this Holiday Letter. Love you! 

But she’s gone on a secular scientific crusade (oops, awkward word) this year. Laurel started a discussion group called Freethinkers/Skeptics of Salem, which meets monthly. They dance naked around a fire in the moonlight, drunkenly singing pagan chants. 

Well, not really. (The group would have more members if this happened.) 

They just talk about what it is like to be an unbeliever in a society where religiosity is all-pervasive. After all, this country would be much more likely to elect a Muslim as president than an atheist (disturbingly, a large number of Americans think we already have).

Celeste, Brian’s daughter, and her family have moved from the Studio City area south to Laguna Niguel in Orange County. Yes, Orange County, the place where progressives like Celeste are loathe to live. 

Except when they move there and love it! 

During our visit to see them in their new spiffy suburban house, we were struck by how perfect everything seems to be in their area. No litter. No ugly signs. No homeless people on the streets. Just neat, tidy, and clean almost everyplace the eye alights. 

“Come live down here,” Celeste said to us, semi-seriously. “You can baby-sit Evelyn whenever you want.” 

Evelyn being our eight year-old granddaughter who, like most kids these days, strikes us as mature beyond her years, especially regarding her ability to use an iPad and iPhone, and soon will be fully capable of grandparent-sitting.

Which would sound pretty damn good — if we weren’t so insanely attached to where we are: rainy, boring, messy Salem, and our challenging rural life on ten overgrown acres.

Where a man can pee in the front yard, a woman can roam the woods, and a dog can run free. Sweet! May your life be as crazily enjoyable, in 2016 and beyond. 

So many gods, so many creeds.
So many paths that wind and wind.
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs.

 — Ellen Wheeler Wilcox —

Still HinesSight: blog design just got modernized

Wow, old bloggers CAN learn new tricks. I've been thinking about changing the design of my two blogs for quite a while, but wrongly thought this would be difficult.

It wasn't. Just took a bit of clicking around today.

I'm trying out a "responsive" TypePad style that is mobile friendly. I also deleted some extraneous stuff in the sidebar. To me the look and feel is considerably cleaner and more modern now.

And I've heard that the Great God Google has taken to rewarding web sites that are mobile friendly in his/her/its search results. So... another benefit.

Four possible sites selected for new Salem police facility

Well, after more than five years of planning -- much of it poorly done -- a Salem City Council subcommittee has selected four possible sites in this town where a new 150,000 sq. ft. police facility could be built. 

This happened tonight at a meeting in a third-floor conference room at City Hall.

I and some other members of the Salem Community Vision (SCV) steering committee attended the meeting, sporting purple stickers with the SCV position: $50 Million Police HQ & Seismic 

Salem Community Vision has the answer to this question — a 75,000 square foot facility, 50% larger than the police facilities we have — with room on the site for expansion as the City grows in the future. Also, room on the site for surface parking — much cheaper than a parking structure. This can be built for just under $30 million. And then we also need to include $20 million for a seismic upgrade to our Library and City Hall (we love our first responders, but their lives are not more important than the lives of library users and city hall employees who might be crushed in collapsed buildings when the Big One comes).

However, the City Council subcommittee -- Mayor Anna Peterson and councilors Steve McCoid, Warren Bednarz, and Diana Dickey -- unanimously voted tonight to move ahead with planning for a 150,000 sq. ft. police facility that could cost around $70 million rather than $30 million (more than double the cost of a 75,000 sq. ft. facility, because a parking structure might be needed).

This was recommended by the consultants (the two men on the left of the photo above) in line with previous guidance provided by the subcommittee, though one of them admitted that "this is larger than what anybody expected."

The consultants seemed highly competent. But they're taking directions from the City Council subcommittee. And by nature, consultants want to please the people who are paying their bills. So it isn't surprising that what is being proposed arguably is a Police Palace that Salem citizens can't afford. 

Especially since the price of a 150,000 sq. ft. building has pushed out all discussion of earthquake-proofing City Hall and the Library, which originally was part of the City's plan for a new police facility.

If this unwise proposal moves forward, and somehow were to become reality, police department staff would be enjoying a safe place to survive the Big One earthquake that is a matter of when, not if, while other employees at the Civic Center and patrons at the library would be in buildings that likely would collapse in a major seismic event. 

This is why I wrote, "Why a new Salem police facility could cost many lives."

Salem Community Vision wants to be a part of the campaign to help pass the bond.  

 

Well, I do also.

 

But only if the lives of everybody who might be at City Hall and the Library when the Big One earthquake hits are viewed as important as the lives of police department staff.

 

It makes no sense to give the Salem Police Department a fancy over-priced new building, built to modern earthquake safety standards, if this means there isn't enough money to seismically retrofit the Civic Center. 

 

If the Police Facility Task Force and the Salem City Council are foolish enough to go this route, Salem voters should turn down a bond measure for an overly expensive police facility bond that doesn't include money for seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library.

Anyway, the most interesting part of tonight's meeting was the selection of four possible sites where a new 150,000 sq. ft. police facility could be located.

The consultants were asked to pick three sites, but Mayor Peterson was so enamored with the block south of the Library, she agreed to pay the consultants more money to have them conduct a detailed site analysis of that location -- which didn't make the top three.

So, in order of the consultant's scoring, these are the most highly ranked sites:

#1: The old O'Brien auto dealerships property at Commercial & Division just north of downtown (129 points)
#2: The DT Storage property across from Boon's Treasury, close to #1 (106 points)
#3: The Windows to the West city-owned property across from City Hall (100.5 points)
#4: The block south of the Library between Commercial & Liberty (97 points)

I've scanned the last two pages from the consultant's presentation that shows the top eight sites, along with the criteria used to rank them.
Download Salem Police Facilty sites

It was obvious that the Mayor really wants a new police facility to be as close as possible to the Civic Center. For a long time she wanted it to be ON the Civic Center property, north of City Hall, next to and over Mirror Pond. 

But this idea got squashed by citizen opposition to such an overpriced (it would require 300 spaces in a parking structure, at $30,000 each) and poorly located building. So now it looks like Mayor Peterson has her heart set on a police facility right across the street, either to the west or south.

However, these sites suffer from the same drawbacks the Mirror Pond site had: too small, high development cost. Like I said, the Commercial and Leslie site south of the Library didn't make the top three, so the Mayor had to demand that the consultants include it in the list of sites that now will get a detailed analysis.

Meaning, the consultants will lay out how a 150,000 sq. ft. building and 300 parking spaces could fit on each of the four sites. The sites adjacent to the Civic Center are considerably smaller than the minimum 3-4 acres recommended by the consultants, being just 2.3 acres each, so construction costs will be higher there.

Now the game-playing really begins. 

The Mayor, and likely some other city councilors, will keep on pushing for an over-priced, overly-large police facility adjacent to the Civic Center. Wiser minds will recognize that a less expensive and smaller (yet perfectly adequate) police facility has a much better chance of winning approval from Salem's citizens.

Especially if the lower price allows for seismic retrofitting of City Hall and the Library.

Which, as stated before, was the original plan by City officials before dreams of a Police Palace began running through their heads.

Decision to demolish LeBreton Hall points to habitual Salem City Council dysfunction

Going to a Salem City Council meeting isn't the most entertaining way to spend a Monday night. But for me these meetings are interesting on several different levels. 

There's (1) what is going on between City officials and the public in the present moment, and also (2) how these interactions point to habitual ways of acting by the City Council -- which is sort of like Blake's "see the world in a grain of sand" notion.

Last night the City Council -- which consists of Mayor Anna Peterson and eight city councilors -- voted to accept a recommendation by city staff to demolish LeBreton Hall. This 1908 building is the oldest and most attractive building that remains on the grounds of the old Fairview Training Center property in south Salem.

I wrote about this issue a few weeks ago in "Salem officials want to demolish another historic building, Fairview's LeBreton Hall." The facts in that blog post are pretty much the same now, aside from the City of Salem staff report being updated to reflect higher projected demolition/deconstruction costs.

During the public comment period of yesterday's City Council meeting, I and several others urged that LeBreton Hall be secured and weatherized for an estimated $190,000, rather than demolishing the building for $250,000 -- with $160,000 of that coming from City funds (the other $90,000 would be paid by the seller of the property, Sustainable Fairview Associates, that's being acquired for a 29 acre city park.

Here's how I saw both the "world" and "grain of sand" aspects of last night's meeting. Meaning, how the specifics of went on with the LeBreton Hall discussion/decision reflected some general problems with the Salem City Council (in boldface).

Disrespect of citizen participation. 
As noted in my previous post, the proposal by City officials to demolish LeBreton Hall popped up unexpectedly in the midst of an outreach program by the City of Salem to learn how citizens want the 29 acre park to be developed.

Since LeBreton Hall is on the 29 acres, neighbors and other interested people were looking forward to discussing possible ways the building could be renovated and repurposed. In my testimony yesterday I quoted Geoff James, an architect who lives in the Fairview area. James wrote:

As recently as two weeks ago, at the first Planning Meeting at Pringle Hall the LeBreton Hall was presented as being a building the City and the community is interested in saving and "adaptive re-use" into a suitable use for that elegant building.

So it is a shock to read in "Breakfast On Bikes" that there is now a city staff report recommending demolition, or what they call "de-construction". Too bad that cannot consult with the neighborhood association, and the public participants in the current planning process that makes it the centerpiece or jewel in the Fairview Community Park.

This is typical of how City Hall is run these days. All too often, citizen participation is viewed as a roadblock that slows down City officials from doing what they've already decided needs to be done.

In this case, every piece of public testimony said "preserve LeBreton Hall." Two neighborhood associations, SESNA and Grant, urged that demolition be delayed until citizens were able to weigh in on the recently announced proposal to demolish the building. So did each person who testified at last night's public comment period.

The woman who represented the Grant Neighborhood Association (I've forgotten her name) stood up later in the meeting and asked Mayor Peterson, who chairs City Council meetings, if she could testify as herself, since previously she'd spoken on behalf of the Grant NA. 

At first Mayor Peterson said she couldn't. Then the Mayor relented and said she could. But as soon as the woman got to the podium and said a few words that included "LeBreton Hall," Mayor Peterson forcefully said something like, "Stop! I've changed my mind. You can't testify."

I found this very weird.

It was disrespectful both to the woman and to all Salem citizens who want to speak out about some issue. Why not give the woman another three minutes to tell the City Council how she feels about the demolition proposal? 

The meeting lasted about three and a half hours. Yet Mayor Peterson, after telling the woman she could speak for three minutes, stopped her after about three seconds.

Why? I suspect because Peterson remembered how eloquently the woman had spoke before about how the Grant Neighborhood Association wanted an opportunity to involve citizens in discussing the pros and cons of demolishing LeBreton Hall.

Fudging the facts. 
Both the Mayor and members of her conservative City Council majority are prone to saying stuff that isn't true. (Some top City staff, such as the Public Works Director, are habitual truth-shaders also.) Fact-fudging was very much on display last night.

My favorite example was Councilor Jim Lewis saying that it was citizens like me who were displaying a last-minute "newfound urgency" in preserving LeBreton Hall. He said this was typical, how the City moves along in a certain direction, then boo-birds and nay-sayers jump in near the end of the decision-making process, demanding this and that even though they'd had opportunities to express their opinions before.

That, bluntly speaking, was total B.S. -- especially in regard to LeBreton Hall.

Until the first City of Salem staff report came out on December 2, every indication was that the building was slated to be preserved. So it wasn't citizens who jumped in at the last moment with a different point of view, it was City officials.

The first (and only) time people had a chance to comment on the demolition proposal was last night, along with emailing the City Council after the second updated staff report was released a few days before, on Thursday afternoon.

Councilor Chuck Bennett also contributed a fudged-fact when he said about the City Council, "We do not tear down historic buildings." Actually, the council does.

Back in July, 2014 the City Council overruled a decision by the Historic Landmarks Commission to preserve Howard Hall, a historic building. So either Bennett has a short memory, or he purposely twisted the facts.

I also was bemused by repeated assertions that every effort had been made to find another use for LeBreton Hall, and none could be found. For one thing, the building has been in the hands of Sustainable Fairview Associates, LLC, a private company. 

Sam Hall, the managing member, testified last night that he'd tried to get prospective buyers like McMenamins interested in LeBreton Hall, but had no luck. Well, it is one thing to seek a "repurposing" that's attractive to a private business that wants to make money, and another thing to seek a new use for LeBreton Hall that fits with public ownership of the building as part of a city park.

It isn't surprising that private buyers weren't interested in an old building that sits in the middle of nowhere, basically. Most of the Fairview property hasn't been developed yet. Very few people live close to LeBreton Hall. It isn't on a road that people travel on. 

But this doesn't mean that a creative re-use of LeBreton Hall for a public purpose as part of a city park couldn't be found. But the City Council decided to demolish the building, which eliminates any chance this can happen now. Which gets me to my final (brief) observation about a habitual City Council weakness.

Excessive confidence that they know best. 
This fits in with disrespecting citizen participation and fudging the facts. Open-minded people who are eager to hear other points of view and aren't afraid to change their mind welcome hearing other opinions and getting their facts straight. 

But almost every time I attend a City Council meeting, I come away with this impression: 

These guys are exceedingly confident that they know what they're doing. Even when they shouldn't be.

Last night I didn't hear serious expressions of "I'm not sure what to do," "We need to know more," or "It'd be better to talk to the community before making a final decision." 

Well, with one exception: Councilor Tom Andersen made a motion to postpone a decision on what to do with LeBreton Hall until February, 2016 -- which would allow time for citizens to be involved in discussions about what could be done with a repurposed LeBreton Hall. 

However, Andersen withdrew his motion when, after quite a bit of discussion (and misinformation), it was clear that the motion would fail. As so often happens with the Salem City Council, the best idea of the night got no support from the Mayor and other city councilors.

Speak up for low-income housing at Dec. 14 City Council meeting

Yesterday I heard from an advocate for Salem's homeless who asked me to publicize this important message:

Advocate for low-income housing on Monday!

The Salem Housing Advisory Committee is asking that the City set aside 25% of the repurposed State Hospital property for low income housing.  The Salem Housing Commission will receive this recommendation on Monday. 

Date: 12/14/2015 
Time: 6:30 PM -‎ 10:00 PM  (Housing is first hour or so of meeting)
Location: City Hall, Council Chambers, Room 240.

Let's show up en masse in the early part of the evening to support more low income housing in Salem.

How about signs "Off our steps, off the streets-housing for the homeless now!"
Rally the troops....call or e-mail friends, other churches, etc.....

Show them the homeless have more advocates than the City ever realized!!!

Great idea. Salem's Mayor and City Council have been talking about solving this town's homeless problem for many years, but action has been minimal. 

There's a couple of ways you can urge City of Salem officials to embrace the Salem Housing Advisory Committee recommendation that 25% of the 48 acres on the State Hospital North Campus should be repurposed into affordable housing.

(1) Speak up in person for the homeless and others who need affordable housing at the Monday, December 14, 6:30 pm meeting of the Salem Housing Commission in the Council Chambers at City Hall. (Eight of the nine Commission members are Salem's eight city councilors.) 

The agenda shows that public comments will be heard at the beginning of the meeting. Three minutes is allowed for each commenter. Read the staff report about the State Hospital affordable housing proposal to learn more about what's being recommended. Or click on this PDF file.
Download Salem Affordable Housing Staff Report

(2) Email the Salem City Council, Mayor, City Manager, and other city officials at [email protected]

Tell them you support the proposal of the Salem Housing Authority Committee to allocate 25% of the repurposed State Hospital property for affordable housing. The Committee documents the need in its recommendation, as summarized by Salem Community Vision in a recent post:

SALEM HOUSING ADVISORY COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS
12 ACRES OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING AT THE NORTH CAMPUS

On Monday night the Salem City Council (meeting as the Salem Housing Authority) will hear a recommendation from the Salem Housing Advisory Committee to plan for 12 acres of affordable housing at the North Campus site on Center Street. 

Their report to Council notes that there are currently 5,254 residents on the Housing Choice Voucher waiting list.

Here's the takeaway quote from their report:

"Despite incentives and demand, private developers are not building apartments for poor people [in Salem]. Vouchers (housing subsidies) are useful, but not when there aren't enough units. In 2012, Salem had a significant deficit of nearly 6,400 affordable housing units for households earning less than $25,000 ... Given that the vacancy rate in Salem is near zero,and that one in four of those nearing retirement age has no retirement savings and no children, the situation is unlikely to improve without substantial public sector commitment sustained over the long term ..."

The currrent plan for the North Campus is to tear down all of the buildings except for the Dome Building and possibly Yaquina Hall and to offer it for sale to a developer. It seems like the Salem Housing Advisory Committee recommendation offers the Council an opportunity to consider a better plan to meet a real need in our community.

If you support the Housing Advisory Committee recommendation, consider testifying at the meeting on Monday night at 6:30 pm at City Hall or send comments to [email protected]et

I'm loving my Public Rec "All Day Every Day" pants

Kickstarter rocks. I've enjoyed every product that I've gotten after contributing some cash to a start-up company via Kickstarter. 

But I'm absolutely loving the pants that Public Rec sent me -- which they're calling the All Day Every Day men's pant. When I saw the video that was part of their Kickstarter appeal, and read a description of the pant, I was immediately sold. 

Here's the video. It could have used some narration, I suppose. However, before viewing it I'd already perused the features list.

• Elastic waistband with internal drawstring for maximum comfort
• Two deep, front zipper pockets to keep your valuables secure
• Side panel for a more refined design
• Faux front fly for a more formal look
• Blend of nylon and spandex to create a durable, moisture-wicking fabric
• Tapered bottoms to display your kicks
• Two sizable, back welt pockets for your wallet or other accessories

Well, though I do my best to embrace the youthful vibe of the dude in the video, I'm 67, not 27. Yet I'm finding the All Day Every Day Pant to be marvelously suited to my own lifestyle. 

After getting my two Kickstarter pants in black (36" waist, 32" length; I'm about 6 feet tall), I've worn them... take a guess... every day. Not all day, quite, but most of every day. 

They're great.

For example, on a typical day I wear them while riding my StreetStrider outdoor elliptical bike for about 40 minutes in a Salem park. Then I go to a nearby athletic club to lift weights and do some yoga, followed by a Tai Chi class. If I need to go to a meeting of a civic activism group, the pants are still worn there. Shopping or dining at a restaurant, my All Day Every Day pants shine here also.

They're as advertised. Somewhat stretchy, yet not tight. Casual, yet considerably more fitted than the cotton Crazy Shirts Canton pants I'd been wearing before. 

I abhor belts. And pants that fall down. So the elastic waistband with drawstring is perfect for me. I also like the tapered bottom of the pant. That makes for a cleaner, more athletic fit. 

Dog hair is easy to remove from the nylon/spandex material. Dirt also brushes off easily, like after I've ridden my bike through puddles and gotten a few spots on the pants. Much more easily than with cotton, for sure. 

I like the pant so much, I ordered three more pairs just a day or two after getting the first Kickstarter pants -- two gray pants and another black pair. Here's photos of me modeling the gray and black pants (the gray pairs arrived today). I used a mirror in our bedroom to take a headless selfie.

Gray pants

Black pants

One of the cool things about Kickstarter projects is feeling like you're part of the product creation process. OK, a small part, because you've just contributed a bit of money to get the product off the ground. Still, every contributor gets regular updates on how things are going.

And, in this case, with the Kickstarter shipment, a handwritten thank you note from the founder of Public Rec, the maker of the pants.

Nice touch, Zach. I enjoyed reading what you said when I got my pants.

Thank you for your support. It truly means a lot. I'm so excited to be launching Public Rec with your help and hope you love the pants. -- Zach

Hey, I do. A lot.

Thanks back at you for all the work it took to get the All Day Every Day pant designed and into production. And kudos for making them right here in the United States. 

Sure, the pants aren't cheap: $95. But to me they're well worth the price. Check them out. 

Anti-abortion zealots supporting domestic terrorism have blood on their hands

Today it became totally clear that the man who shot up the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, Robert Dear, was motivated by a hatred of abortion and those who provide abortions. 

From the New York Times story, "Colorado Shooting Suspect Declares 'I'm Guilty' in Court."

In a bizarre scene at what was expected to be a routine hearing, Robert L. Dear on Wednesday disrupted his first in-person court appearance since a shooting rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic here with angry outbursts, a declaration of his guilt and vehement expressions of his anti-abortion politics.

“I’m guilty. There’s no trial. I’m a warrior for the babies,” Mr. Dear, bearded, unkempt and in leg and arm manacles, shouted during a hearing in which he was charged with 179 felony counts, including first-degree murder. “Let it all come out. The truth!” he exclaimed another time.

Mr. Dear was arrested on Nov. 27 after the attack on the clinic, which left three people dead and nine wounded. He was arrested by the police after a tense standoff.

And it was a vivid reminder of the horror and stakes in the Colorado shooting which was almost immediately eclipsed by the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. five days later. Aside from Mr. Dear’s reported reference to “no more baby parts” his motivation had remained somewhat unclear.

But in repeated outbursts on Wednesday, he seemed to leave little mystery about his view of the Planned Parenthood attack.

As Judge Gilbert Anthony Martinez of Colorado’s Fourth Judicial District and the lawyers discussed which parties might be affected by a pretrial publicity order, Mr. Dear, 57, shouted: “Could you add the babies that were supposed to be aborted that day? Could you add that to the list?”

Before getting into who, other than Robert Dear, deserves blame for the Planned Parenthood shootings, let's review some facts about abortion in this country.

(1) It is legal. The Supreme Court has determined this.
(2) It is legal for a woman to donate fetal tissue from an abortion for medical research purposes. 
(3) And it is legal for Planned Parenthood, or any other abortion provider, to be reimbursed for the cost of providing that fetal tissue donated with the consent of the woman choosing to have an abortion.

Planned Parenthood hasn't been found to do anything illegal with "selling baby parts," as anti-abortion zealots such as Carly Fiorina, Donald Trump, and other GOP leaders have wrongly claimed. 

So aren't they supporting domestic terrorism, in much the same way as radical Muslims who chant "Death to America!" are supporting Islamic terrorism? 

I don't see much difference here.

Anyone who opposes abortion and calls abortion providers "murderers" is spouting a lie that gives aid and comfort to those who commit violent acts against Planned Parenthood clinics/staff. Like I said, abortion is legal. So obviously no murders are being performed by Planned Parenthood.

Yet wackos like Robert Dear hear these lies come from the mouths of nationally recognized Republican leaders. To my mind, those leaders -- which include a good share of the GOP presidential candidates -- have blood on their hands when violence is committed against an abortion clinic. 

What anti-abortion advocates should do is speak like this:

"Abortion is legal. I wish it wasn't, but it is. Those who provide abortions aren't breaking the law. They are doing what they believe is right, though I personally believe it is wrong. Let's work to elect a president who will appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade, thereby making abortion illegal again. Until then, we can peacefully protest against abortion, but we can't interfere with the legal provision of abortions."

Until this happens, until all talk of "murderers," "killers," "selling of baby parts," and such disappears from public discourse about Planned Parenthood, those who fan the flames of violence against abortion providers are partly responsible for the lives lost in clinic attacks.

Devastating critique of Salem Statesman Journal by experienced journalist

Baby boomer guy that I am, I'm old-fashioned when it comes to newspapers. Meaning, I still read them!

My wife and I subscribe to the print versions of both the Salem Statesman Journal and the Portland Oregonian. I also have a digital subscription to the New York Times. 

Given that I like newspapers, and have read one or more almost every day of my life, I've been saddened by how far down the Journalistic Quality mountain our home-town paper, the Gannett-owned Statesman Journal, has slid.

I've written numerous criticisms of the newspaper on this blog. Type "Statesman Journal" into the Google search box in the right sidebar and you'll find my rants (no raves, I'm pretty sure).

Today a newcomer to Salem with 30 years of experience in the newspaper business wrote a critique of the Statesman Journal that made my heart sing with, Oh, yeah, right on sister! So true! Tell it like it is!

Sarah Rohrs left the comment below on a Strange Up Salem post I put up this morning in response to a piece by editorial page editor Dick Hughes, "Life in Newspapers: Constant Change but Same Mission."

She nails what's wrong with the newspaper. Sarah doesn't pull any punches. I like her bluntness.

From Sarah Rohrs:

Here are the comments I e-mailed to the editor and Dick Hughes. I could not post them online as I am no longer a subscriber.

 

Dear Mr. Hughes - I read your column about how great Gannett and the Statesman Journal are in news coverage.

 

I nearly had to laugh out loud when I got to this part - "Our news stories regularly give readers the information they need to engage in local or state issues. Mid-Valley residents, businesspeople and public officials cannot afford to skip the Statesman Journal if they want to know about topics that will affect them."  

Surely, you can't be serious. How can you even entertain that thought with a straight face? 

I am in no one's camp here in Salem. I am a new resident, having moved here in early October. One of the very first things I did was subscribe to the Statesman Journal to get informed about the community. I was looking forward to getting the paper and reading the stories.

 

I am also a 30-year newspaper veteran, a reporter who began in 1985 at a weekly. I worked as a FT-plus reporter (lots of unpaid OT) in mid-size dailies for 25 years and have intimate knowledge of newsrooms and the effects of the downsizing over the last ten years or so. 

I have to tell you that in all my years of working in and reporting at newspapers I have never seen a more mediocre daily newspaper than the Statesman Journal.

 

After less than two months I cancelled my subscription which I found very sad as I wanted very much to support the local newspaper and learn about my new hometown. On a limited income with little savings I could not justify the expense.

 

Far from giving me the news I need to understand and be informed about Salem, the SJ seems to have a deliberate and intentional embargo on hard news stories. In one Sunday paper I did not see ONE local hard news story, not one. How can that be? Each story in this Sunday paper (Nov. 29) consisted of feel-good feature stories, plus numerous holiday stories. Not one local news story.

My subscription ran out this past Friday (Dec. 4). I got the paper for two months. At first I figured "lots of slow news days," a few reporters must be on vacation.

 

Then I began to wonder where are the news stories? Where are the City Council and school board stories? I have seen virtually no school district stories. That is very strange as this is a big family town and I would think parents would want to know what is happening in their town. What are the issues in Salem? I have no idea from reading the Statesman Journal. 

I looked at your online masthead to see how many reporters there are on staff and was surprised to see so many. From what I can tell there are at least 15 reporters and at least six editors. Whoa! That’s a big news staff for a mid-size daily What do you all do all day?

In my last newspaper job in a city about the same size as Salem and with a newspaper about the same size, our newsroom had five full-time reporters on our staff and two editors. We could write circles around your reporters. The City Hall reporter actually covered meetings and did stories on city government. What does your city government reporter do? Does the schools reporter do anything but write feel-good feature stories about how great the schools are in Salem? 

What's happening with the downtown? What kind of developments are in the pipeline? What's the Planning Commission up to? In my two months here in Salem I see a lot of poverty around me. What's the job condition like? You have a “causes” reporter. What are the causes in Salem? I would really like to know.

One of the few City Council stories I did see was little more than a city staff report rewrite on new tree regulations. Amazingly, this story (barely more than a brief) was the top of the fold Page One story! I saw that you had to increase the type face size to make this tiny story stretch across the page. I contacted the reporter and asked him why this issue was significant (as I had no idea from his story) and he said, basically, it wasn't significant at all. Just a technicality for staff.

 

Since then I've heard from other news sources that trees are a big deal in Salem. Why didn't this reporter do more work and present a complete report? The least you could have done, as an editor, was to ask the reporter to write a few more paragraphs to make it fit in the space. It was truly embarrassing. 

My biggest question for you two is this - Where is the pride among the reporters and editors? I know first-hand the effects cuts have had on newspapers and editorial staff. But there is no excuse for such weak news stories and overall coverage. I am not in the Statesman Journal newsroom, of course, so I don’t know the conditions.

 

But, truly, I am mystified and disappointed at the serious lack of news coverage in your paper. Surely, no pack of editors and an entire newsroom of reporters can be that lazy.

Please don’t delude yourself with thinking that you and your reporters give readers what they need to be informed and make informed choices about their town. That’s embarrassing. Take a hard look at your news coverage and make an honest assessment and at last consider taking steps to improve your news coverage. 

A former subscriber

Sarah Rohrs

Strange Up Salem logo: story behind the art

I'd never compare the new Strange Up Salem logo to the Mona Lisa, but...

No, wait! I would! 

Art is art. Unless it isn't art. But clearly, this logo is. It is an original creation by Ryan James Rhoades of Salem's Reformation Designs.

And moi. (Now that I am an artist of sorts, having collaborated with Ryan on the logo -- not to mention paying for it -- I am going to speak more French; but wear a beret? Non.)

Regarding the Mona Lisa, imagine that it was possible to know what Leonardo da Vinci was thinking when he created his famous painting.

How valuable would it have been to art historians of the future if da Vinci had described the inner muse that led him to fashion his portrait the way he did? Invaluable, of course. Ah, if only da Vinci had a blog.

Which I do!

I thus feel a duty to relate the story behind the creation of this Strange Up Salem logo so that -- months, years, or even centuries from now -- lovers of great visual branding art who recognize the brilliance of one Ryan James Rhoades (and, yes, humble moi) will have a contemporaneous recounting of the creative process that culminated yesterday.

The genesis of this piece of art arose from a lofty motivation: I wanted to be able to wear a Strange Up Salem t-shirt! 

And that required an image, a logo.

So I contacted Ryan. He asked me to describe what Strange Up Salem is all about. In my reply I did my best to eff the ineffable. Ryan produced an initial sample logo. It was OK, but not what I wanted.

Then... a crucial moment.

I woke one morning with a logo vision. Actually, several visions. In retrospect, they were pretty lame, design-wise. But since I'm out to stake my claim to a piece of Salem logo/brand design art history, I choose to focus on the single good idea in the rambling email I sent to Ryan.

Somehow STRANGE UP SALEM is a rocket ship. Circular, as above? But STRANGE is the rocket ship, the word powered by UP, the thruster, uplifting mojo vibes/fumes/energy coming out of the word, with SALEM lifting up, connected as it is to the rocket ship with ropes, wires, flower petals, whatever. It’s a happy scene. Flowers, bunnies, happy faces, thumbs-up, they’re floating in space as a backdrop.

 

OK. This isn’t a logo. It isn’t close to a logo. It’s too wild and crazy and complex to be a logo. It’s just an image that I’ve tried to convert into words. I guess the feeling is what means more to me than the concepts.

 

Energetic. Quirky. Light-hearted. In motion. Unpredictable. 

 

Which brings to mind, as I wrote “unpredictable”… The space ship in my image would be veering, not going in a straight line. It’d be going somewhere, UP, but nowhere in particular. Space, the final frontier…

 

Take this message for what its worth. Just wanted to share some ideas before they departed my mind.

Bingo!

Leonardo da Vinci had the vision of a woman's enigmatic smile; Brian Hines, moi, had the idea of a rocket ship. But I can't draw or paint, which is one difference between da Vinci and myself that art historians of the future will need to take into account.

So Ryan James Rhoades took the rocket ship ball and ran with it.

Yesterday afternoon we spent an hour or so Skyping away, which mostly consisted of me watching my laptop's screen as Ryan did impressively mysterious PhotoShop stuff to an initial logo image ("mysterious," because I know next to nothing about PhotoShop).

Early on, purple became the core logo color.

Why? Because Ryan ran through various colors, and when purple appeared, I said "I like it!" I told him that recently I bought a bunch of Pentel pens with purple ink. I have a purple Patagonia jacket. My wife likes purple. So would our dog, I'm pretty sure, if she saw color like humans do. So, done, purple it is. 

My big creative push was to ask of Ryan, no, demand, that the nose of the rocket ship extend beyond the boundary of the enclosing circle. This just seemed so right.

Salem, to be sufficiently strange, must not be confined. This town needs to soar into creative, vibrant livability. No limits. No constraints. Thrusters on full! (Early on, I told Ryan that I really liked the orange flame.)

We spent quite a bit of time on the rocket ship window/porthole. It needed to be purple, rather than white, to indicate that there was space inside the ship, as well as outside.

I asked Ryan if it would be possible to have a teeny-tiny image of our dog's face looking out the porthole, but pixel-wise this seemed doubtful. Also, I was nine when Laika, the Russian space dog, went into orbit in 1957. Since the journey didn't end well for Laika, I scratched that idea.

Late in the logo finalization process, Ryan contributed a massive creative breakthrough: angling the rocket ship. Until then, it was vertical. As soon as he tilted it, I yelled "Yes! Brilliant! Much more energy!"

So there you have it, art historians of the future -- a synopsis of the story behind the Strange Up Salem logo. This blog post will become increasingly important as Salem is transformed. Here's how I put it in a comment on my Facebook post yesterday.

Whatever progress, whatever successes, whatever improvements in this town's livability, whatever ANYTHING good happens from now until the end of time in this town -- clearly it will have been due to the unveiling of the Strange Up Salem logo, which possesses magical powers to propel our could-be-fairer city into new heights of urban wonderfulness.

Gotta believe, gotta believe.

Ryan uses Society6 for distributing his own creative products, so I signed up with them also. I've ordered several logo'ized Strange Up Salem t-shirts and will model them  when they arrive. There's a wide range of Strange Up Salem stuff on Society6.

If you've ever wanted a Strange Up Salem shower curtain, your dream can be fulfilled. 

Salem officials want to demolish another historic building, Fairview's LeBreton Hall

Another day, another worrisome effort by City of Salem officials to demolish our town's history for no good reason. 

Recently they overturned a Historic Landmarks Commission recommendation to preserve Howard Hall, the last remaining building on the School for the Blind property. Instead, the City Council voted to tear Howard Hall down.

(So Salem Hospital could build an over-sized parking lot.)

Now LeBreton Hall, a majestic 1908 structure that was one of the first to be built on the Fairview Training Center property (which used to be called the State Institution for the Feeble-Minded; we've made progress) is on the chopping block.

As so often happens with the City of Salem these days, what's going on with LeBreton Hall is a mixture of poor judgment, confusion, and illogic. Here's the basic facts.

(1) The City of Salem agreed to buy 29 acres of land now owned by Sustainable Fairview Associates, LLC, which acquired the entire 275 acre Fairview property from the State of Oregon in 2002. As described by the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blog in August 2015, the 29 acres is intended to be a park. It includes LeBreton Hall.

The only agenda item of any real interest is a proposal for the City to purchase nearly 30 acres at the Fairview Redevelopment for a new City "community park." 

Just as important as the park is the prospect for the preservation of Le Breton Hall of 1908, the first building at Fairview, and one designed by Walter D. Pugh, an important early architect who did our old City Hall and the Grand Theatre.

Unfortunately, there are few details about the building, or about the City's intent for it, other than that it will not be demolished.

(2) Well, now it is slated for demolition. City staff have recommended to the Mayor and City Council that LeBreton Hall be "deconstructed." The staff report was on the agenda for next Monday's council meeting, but now the agenda item has been pulled. 

Here's the staff report:  Download 12-7-15 Le Breton Building Report 

It says that rather than the City paying $90,000 more than the $50,000 anticipated cost of securing and weatherizing the building (meaning the total cost for this is now estimated to be $140,000), LeBreton Hall should be deconstructed/demolished for approximately $190,000. 

The staff report says:

This recommendation is based on the high cost ($140,000) to secure and weatherize the building; the ongoing annual cost to secure building; the anticipated high cost to renovate the building for an as yet undetermined use; the lack of funding source for the renovation, and; the lack of funding source to maintain and operate the building after it has been renovated.

(3) OK, let's, um, deconstruct some of the reasoning here. At the moment, City officials are faced with two choices.

One option is to secure and weatherize LeBreton Hall for $140,000; this will leave the City, and public, with an attractive historic building that is part of a planned park and could be renovated for some unknown use in the future.

The second option is to tear down LeBreton Hall for about $190,000. (This must be an underestimate, or the agenda item wouldn't have been pulled "due to a revision in the cost estimate necessary to deconstruct the LeBreton building and abate any hazardous material.")

So paying $190,000 -- or more -- in public funds would leave citizens with bare ground and a deconstructed building. Paying $140,000 would give citizens a secure, weatherized large historic building that could be renovated for various new uses.

Why wouldn't City officials want to go the sustainable, flexible, potential historic preservation route? Why would they recommend demolishing LeBreton Hall before a Master Plan for the park has been developed, since that plan could well include some creative reuses for the building? 

(4) Which gets me to my last point, the curious recommendation by City staff to tear down LeBreton Hall while citizens are being asked to weigh in on how they want the 29 recently purchased park acres, which includes that building, to be developed. 

Here's a comment that Geoff James, an architect who lives in the Fairview area, left on a recent Breakfast on Bikes post, "City Proposes to Demolish 1908 LeBreton Hall at Fairview."

LE BRETON HALL and the FAIRVIEW COMMUNITY PARK. The Community Park has been an important element in the Morningside 360 Neighborhood Plan that we worked on the last five years. It was adopted by City Council in August 2015. The park was shown as an identical "asterisk" to the Parks Master Plan, because a site had not been identified.

However, for the past 18 months Sustainable Fairview has been proposing the Crescent at Fairview as the site of originally a 35 acre Community Park. It's currently being worked on in a series of four monthly work sessions with the public, interacting with a landscape architect consultant (who also headed up the Minto Island Park Plan).

Morningside Neighborhood Association learned that the City was interested in saving and reusing three buildings in The Crescent. LeBreton Hall was the administration building, and would make fine museum. Another building has an indoor swimming pool, and Salem badly needs that. So Morningside N.A. endorsed locating the Park at Fairview.

The City went ahead and negotiated that land purchase (SDC funds) and the Master Plan process started. As recently as two weeks ago, at the first Planning Meeting at Pringle Hall the LeBreton Hall was presented as being a building the City and the community is interested in saving and "adaptive re-use" into a suitable use for that elegant building.

So it is a shock to read in "Breakfast On Bikes" that there is now a city staff report recommending demolition, or what they call "de-construction". Too bad that cannot consult with the neighborhood association, and the public participants in the current planning process that makes it the centerpiece or jewel in the Fairview Community Park.

Thus, bluntly speaking, we're left with another WHAT THE HELL ARE CITY OFFICIALS UP TO? moment.

It's bizarre, but not surprising, that the City of Salem is trying to make an end run around citizen participation in an important policy decision -- preserve or tear down LeBreton Hall? -- by preemptively demolishing the building. 

This is what our right-wing Mayor and city council majority typically do: ignore public input and just do whatever they feel like doing (usually what the Chamber of Commerce wants). 

As noted in the above quote from the staff report, City officials want to spend $190,000 to deconstruct the building (rather than $140,000 to secure and weatherize it), because it probably would cost a lot to renovate LeBreton Hall for an as yet undetermined use.

Then, it would cost more to maintain the building for that new use, whatever it might be. So, in the minds of City officials, since we can't visualize what LeBreton Hall might become in the future, let's tear it down.

Hey, Mayor Peterson, City Councilors, and other City staff, try this:

Listen to the people. Involve the public in creative discussions about the new 29 acre park and LeBreton Hall. Have confidence that, just maybe, someone out there in the Big Wide World Outside of City Hall has some good ideas that haven't occurred to the folks inside the City of Salem echo chamber. 

I've heard that this issue will now be on the agenda of a December 14 City Council meeting.

If so, I'm planning to testify during the public comment period. It seems absurd that LeBreton Hall would be demolished before citizens have a chance to consider new uses for this historic building. 

Another mass shooting. No more "thoughts and prayers." Gun control ACTION!

Another week, another mass shooting in America. At least 14 dead, another 14 wounded. And what are we going to do it about it?

Mostly offer our "thoughts and prayers" to the victims. And their families And the first responders. 

Which, obviously, does precisely zero, nada, zilch to stop the next mass shooting. And it will come soon. Because the next one always does.

Only in America do we have this much gun violence. Why? Because we have way more guns per capita than any other nation. So we have way more gun deaths. 

Responsible gun control is the answer. 

Thoughts and prayers are useless. They accomplish nothing (if a person directly affected by a shooting is told you are personally thinking of them, then they might feel a little bit better, but this rarely happens).

So, please Americans, stop with the thoughts and prayers.

All these rote expressions of sympathy accomplish is relieve your guilt that you're not doing anything to stop the needless gun violence.

Instead, ACT!

Support those calling for universal background checks and other reasonable gun control measures. Refuse to vote for politicians who mindlessly do the bidding of the NRA. Put pressure on federal, state, and local officials to prevent more mass shootings.

It's fine to feel for the victims. But if this is all we do, feel, we're being uncaring, not compassionate. One direct action to stop gun violence is better than a thousand thoughts and prayers.