HinesSight

Five reasons to vote "No" on $82 million Salem Police Facility bond

I like the Salem Police Department. I don't like the City of Salem's proposed $82 million "supersized" plan for a new police facility. Likewise, I can support our armed forces and still oppose wasteful military spending.

I've made an Adobe Spark web page that lays out five good reasons to vote NO on the $82 million bond measure that will be on the November ballot. Plus, a bonus reason. Scroll down and click to see it.

Tonight I'm planning to testify during the public comment period at a City Council meeting where, almost certainly, approval of the bond measure referral will occur. 

Here's what I told City officials recently in an email where I gave them advance notice that I'd be opposing the police facility bond measure:

I want to let City officials know that I (along with others) will be actively opposing the $82 million police facility bond measure that, almost certainly, will be approved by the City Council at the upcoming June 27 meeting. 

This is unfortunate, because a lyric from an Adele song comes to mind: “You could have had it all.” After the ill-fated plan to build a new police facility on the Civic Center campus was dropped due to strong community opposition, Salem was close to a consensus on how to proceed:

Build a 75,000 to 106,000 square foot police facility away from the Civic Center, with surface parking, and make vital seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library. 

But the size and cost of the police facility doubled, and the seismic upgrades got squeezed out by the new supersized “full meal deal” plan. So now some of the people who have closely followed this project feel duty-bound to oppose the $82 million bond measure. 

Me included. 

As a first step, I’ve put together a Salem Can Do Better web page — which presents five reasons to vote “No” on the bond:

http://www.salemcandobetter.com

Since community discussion on important issues is always good, Salem will benefit by having a vigorous debate between now and the November election about the merits of the $82 million police facility proposal. As you know, polling showed just about an even split between those who initially favored and opposed a bond for this purpose. 

So I look forward to being a voice on the “No” side of the debate, recognizing that others will speak up for “Yes.” Then voters will decide the question, hopefully based on a full and accurate understanding of what it would mean for the bond measure to pass or fail.

     — Brian

2016 Tour of Homes shows different sides of Salem

Yesterday my wife and I saw what sort of new house $1,147,000 will buy in Salem. Also, what $600,000, and $875,000 will buy you. 

There were quite a few less expensive houses in the 2016 Salem Tour of Homes, but we zeroed in on several of the spendier ones in the south part of town -- where we live.

Our first stop was Torrey Pines Drive S, near Illahee, where we reverentially entered the million dollar home. I'd never been in this particular part of town. It's filled with new'ish nice houses in what the Tour brochure said is "one of Salem's most exclusive neighborhoods."

Unsurprisingly, the home was impressive. The wood-like (or wood, can't remember which) flooring made for a comfortable, laid-back million dollar house feel.

I could sort of see us eating in the kitchen. But since so much of my cuisine emanates from the microwave, I'm not sure if it would match with the impressive marble table.

Living as we do in an early 1970's house with tiny closets and small bathrooms, the master bathroom filled us with awe. As did the walk-in closet at the far end of the photo.

My wife, Laurel, and I lust after different aspects of new expensive homes.

I was especially attracted by the large covered deck with an array of outdoor cooking equipment, gas fireplace, and overhead heaters. These kids touring the deck at the same moment as we did seemed equally taken by the deck.

The view from the deck was nice, but Laurel noted that the steep terraced back "yard" had zero grass. Not dog-friendly. So that eliminated the house from her caninecentric consideration. (As did the price, of course.)

After looking at a much less expensive Tour of Homes house in the Illahee area, we headed to an $875,000 home on Rio Vista Way in South Salem's Fairmount Hill neighborhood. Given how settled the neighborhood is, I asked the architect (who was sitting at a table in the garage) if this was a "teardown."

She told me that it was. The people who built the house considered remodeling the 1950's home that was on the lot, but that turned out to be impractical. So they build a new house that fits nicely with the Fairmount Hill vibe. 

It was unduly white for our tastes. But we live in a house with lots of wood (walls and ceiling), so that probably explains our reaction. The view to the west from the master bedroom was nice.

More whiteness in the master bathroom. Of course, the house isn't being lived in yet, so color accents almost surely will follow once the owners occupy it.

The large trees in the neighborhood add a lot to the view of Rio Vista from an east-facing window. This is one reason why we'd be attracted to Salem's older neighborhoods if (or when) us increasingly old folks want to move from our non-easy-care house in rural south Salem. 

A park right across the street had a cooling water feature. 

Next, we took a look at the first completed home (I think it is) in the Fairview Addition development on the old Fairview Training Center property in south Salem. I know Eric Olsen, the developer. He was in the kitchen of the $600,000 house. I heartily congratulated him on the progress he's made with Fairview Addition.

Olsen's houses are in the modern Craftsman style. Casual and comfortable. My wife and I like larger windows, but, again, we're used to a 70's house which has them. 

The kitchen felt much more appealing for our "grab and eat" lifestyle than the grandiose kitchen in the million dollar house.

The home has an elevated view of Salem to the north and east. 

In the other direction, several more Fairview Addition homes are being constructed.

Since Fairview Addition is billed as a "front porch community," naturally I had to take a photo of the front porch. Eric Olsen's homes are constructed with garages in the back that are accessed by an alleyway.

This makes a huge positive difference in the look and feel of a neighborhood.  It's a lot more welcoming to approach a house with steps leading up to a front porch, than a house with a mass of asphalt leading to the doors of a three car garage. 

What struck me about our Friday evening Tour of Homes excursion was how diverse neighborhoods in Salem are. And we were just in south Salem. East and North Salem have their own very different vibes and characteristics.

People often speak of "Salem" as if it were one unitary city. 

But actually there are many Salem's. In one sense, as many as there are individual people in this town, because everybody looks upon Salem from their own unique perspective. 

Memories of my dead father fade, while his genetic presence persists

It sounds strange to say this (even to myself), but I've already written about everything I know about my father.

Physically, I only spent one hour with him, excluding unremembered baby-time. Telephonically, he started calling me when I was in my early-30's and he was nearing the end of his life. So add on a couple of phone conversation hours I spent with him.

This morning, Father's Day 2016, I pulled out my "Father" file folder.  It contains the sum total of what I jotted down at the time about my father after he briefly came into my life back in the 1980's.

The folder contains a single sheet of folded-over paper, with some quasi-decipherable writing in pencil on it. (Mine, but I'm notorious for not being able to read my own writing.)

The sheet doesn't have much information on it. And like I said, I can't make out some of the words. Much of what I wrote down doesn't pertain to my father. It's about his other children, my half brothers and sisters whom I didn't know about until my father told me some things about them.

So that's it. My Father File. 

I'm glad I have it. It isn't much, but it's hugely more than I had for the thirty-some years before he contacted me. Which was basically, nothing. Just one word, "John," that would be penned on the Christmas card he'd sometimes send to me when I was a kid. 

I'd look at it and sort of wish that he'd written "Dad" or "Your father, John."

All my friends had fathers in their lives. Why not me? As I spoke about at the beginning of my Stories From the Dark Side talk in 2014, I'd complain to the God that I didn't really believe in: "God, what the hell? Why don't I have a father?"

But of course, I did. 

All humans do. Each of us is a genetic blend of our mother and father. And each of them were genetic blends of their mother and father. So it goes, all the way back through the 3.5 billion years life has existed on earth, to LUCA -- our Last Universal Common Ancestor, most likely a small, single-cell organism. 

So here I am, the present-day culmination of all this, sitting outside on our deck before I started writing this post, the natural world that gave me birth reflected in the window behind my chair. 

My selfie is of half of my father. That's so much more meaningful to me than the few memories I have of John Hines, whether written down or encoded in the fading neuronal recollections of the several hours I spent with him telephonically or in person. 

Memories fade.

I've felt guilty that after the one hour I spent physically with my father, I didn't write down anything about the encounter. So what I'm left with now are just a few seconds of reasonably reliable/coherent mental images of what happened after I knocked on a Boston hotel room door and spent the hour with my father.

An hour of lived time shrinks to a few seconds of remembered time. And then, at some point... to nothing after I die. 

Until that moment, though, my father lives on. In me. As me. Part of me, at least. A large part. 

This morning I listened, as I habitually do, to a daily guided meditation on my iPhone's "Calm" app. Today's theme was Kindness. Near the end of the meditation, the woman who does the guiding said:

Let loving kindness extend through your whole body as you take those last few breaths. 

She was speaking of the last few breaths that were part of the meditation practice, not the last breaths of my life (thankfully; I want to see Game 7 of the NBA Finals later today -- great Father's Day present, Warriors and Cavaliers!)

As she said those words, I felt that the best way I could remember my barely-remembered father today was to be aware -- really aware -- of myself and what I'll be experiencing on this Sunday. 

After all, John Hines is an integral part of me. As is my mother. And their ancestors. And all other non-human livings beings all the way back to that Last Universal Common Ancestor.

My father is dead, but in some strange way he continues to live on through my eyes, my ears, my other senses, my thoughts, my feelings. I recollect that I spoke about this at the end of my Stories From the Dark Side talk (but it's been a while since I listened to it). 

Here it is:

Bernie Sanders' revolution is turning into a whimper

Oh, Bernie. This Hillary supporter wants so much for you to recognize the reality that she will be the Democratic presidential candidate, not you. 

And then to work hand-in-hand with Clinton and the Democratic Party to (1) defeat Donald Trump in November, and (2) bring about the progressive policies that you so ably championed during your campaign.

But this tweet by Mark Murray, the senior political editor for NBC News, neatly expresses how your revolution is turning out at the moment:

Not with a bang, but with a whimper

Ouch! Biting, yet true. 

A story in today's New York Daily News has a headline with a similar message: "Enough, Bernie, enough: Sanders needs to hang it up."

After decisively losing the nomination of a party that was never his political home, Bernie Sanders is revealing egotism of practically Trumpian proportions.

Sanders insists that he deserves powerful sway over the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton, whom he savaged during the campaign as an “unqualified” stooge of Wall Street.

As they say at closing time: Bernie, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

...Having become the surprise man of the moment because his lifetime of droning about a rigged system came into vogue, Sanders has lost acquaintance with the American political system.

In 2008, Clinton lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama by a grand total of 41,622 votes and 127 pledged delegates.

Despite the razor-thin margin, Clinton she did not have the gall to suggest that she could pressure the victor to accept any of her platform. She understood, as everyone should, that the winner’s ideas carry the day.

Obama embraced Clintonian ideas only when he deemed them worthy. He graciously offered her the position of secretary of state. He bent in her direction on health care, building an individual mandate into his eventual plan.

These were choices made of his own free will, not because Clinton insisted that her 18 million votes entitled her to anything.

This time, Sanders pulled in 3.7 million fewer votes than Clinton and far fewer delegates.

The way Sanders is acting now that he has lost the nomination makes me realize that I was correct in not voting for him in the Oregon Democratic primary. Sanders' grand political vision is fine. However, his perception is horribly blurred when it comes to dealing with concrete, practical, realistic policy decisions. 

Bernie doesn't seem to realize that he has lost, and Hillary has won.

The loser of a presidential primary doesn't get to decide what the party platform is, determine who chairs the Democratic National Committee, or get their way on Democratic Party election reforms.

Sanders is entitled to work for these things. But he doesn't get to demand them. Sanders needs to congratulate Clinton on her victory, then get to work campaigning for her and fighting against Trump. 

Unfortunately, today much of his focus was on those Democratic Party reforms (some of what he wants is problematic, such as allowing Independents and Republicans to vote in open Democratic primaries), rather than on conceding defeat and endorsing Clinton. 

If Sanders keeps up his Whining Game, he risks alienating the clear majority of Democratic Party primary voters who preferred Clinton's political views. It's amazing that a guy who lost the presidential primary, big time, somehow feels that his positions have to be adopted by the person who defeated him.

Be a good loser, Bernie. Then join with Clinton in bringing about the progressive revolution that both of you want.

Tough to know what to do about mass shootings in United States

I wish I had a realistic answer to stopping mass shootings in this country. I wish somebody did. 

But here we are again, 50 dead and 53 wounded in an attack on a gay nightclub, the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States, and no realistic answers are apparent.

Depressing.

The problem is with that word, realistic.  Because it's pretty obvious why this country has way more gun killings than any other nation: we have way more guns. 

We're not going to get rid of all those guns, though. No way. Not going to happen.

Australia was able to ban semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns. It also instituted a mandatory buy-back program for newly banned weapons. Mass shootings stopped. However, we've got the 2nd Amendment, a fanatic group of NRA-backed gun nuts, and a House of Representatives that likely will remain in Republican control for a while.

This country's best hope for common sense gun control is to change the membership of our Supreme Court enough to allow a return to the legal principle that held sway throughout our nation's history until very recently: the "right to bear arms" isn't an individual right, so reasonable restrictions can be put on it.

I'd like to see assault weapons banned.

They don't serve any sort of hunting or self-defense purpose. I own guns for those purposes (I don't hunt, but I've used a shotgun to blast ground squirrels burrowing under our house's foundation). I've never felt like I needed an assault weapon.

This would be a positive step to reducing the toll of mass shootings. It's hard to believe that Omar Mateen, the gunman in the gay nightclub massacre, could have killed and wounded so many people without using an AR-15-style assault rifle. 

Still, a New York Times piece, "How They Got Their Guns," looks at the guns used in 16 recent mass shootings. Only five involved assault-style weapons. Further:

The vast majority of guns used in 16 recent mass shootings, including two guns believed to be used in the Orlando attack, were bought legally and with a federal background check. At least eight gunmen had criminal histories or documented mental health problems that did not prevent them from obtaining their weapons.

So stricter universal background checks seems like a good place to start in our nation's quest to reduce mass shootings. It seems crazy that Mateen was able to buy his guns so easily, even though he'd been investigated by the FBI as a possible ISIS-sympathizer. 

Beyond this, I'm having trouble thinking of what can be done. Realistically. 

Sure, it'd be great if nobody believed in fantasies about how an imaginary God wants those who don't believe in a certain made-up religion to kill unbelievers. This isn't going to happen anytime soon, though. 

And while better mental health treatment is needed, the United States doesn't have more disturbed people than other countries. We have more freaking guns. People aren't the mass shooting problem in this country. Guns are. So it seems obvious that stronger gun control is the answer.

Along with more and better research on gun violence. The ban on this is absurd. That April 2016 story said;

A coalition of 141 medical organizations sent a letter to four senior members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on Wednesday urging them to restore funding for gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Medical professionals and our communities work to address the devastating and long-lasting physical and emotional effects of gun violence on victims, their families and their friends, but are hampered by the insufficient body of evidence-based research to use to point communities toward proven gun violence prevention programs and policies,” the letter reads.

How many more automobile deaths would there be today if car manufacturers had gotten Congress to ban research on air bags, antilock brakes, road design, and such? So here's another realistic step toward reducing gun deaths: put researchers to work on figuring out the best policies to do this.

Sanders needs to do "Golden Rule" thing, now that Clinton is presumptive nominee

Today is historic. The New York Times headline says it all.

Hillary Clinton Has Clinched Democratic Nomination, Survey Reports.

Hillary Clinton became the first woman to capture the presidential nomination of one of the country’s major political parties on Monday night, according to an Associated Press survey of Democratic superdelegates, securing enough of them to overcome a bruising challenge from Senator Bernie Sanders and turn to a brutal five-month campaign against Donald J. Trump.

Almost eight years after she ended her campaign against Barack Obama before a crowd with many teary women and girls, Mrs. Clinton signaled the news to a jubilant crowd at a campaign stop in Long Beach, Calif.

“I got to tell you, according to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment, but we still have work to do, don’t we?” she said. “We have six elections tomorrow, and we’re going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California.”

It would have been nice if the Sanders campaign had acknowledged the historic nature of a woman finally being the presumptive presidential nominee of a major party.

A spokesperson could have said something like, "We congratulate Ms. Clinton on gaining enough delegates to be the apparent nominee of the Democratic Party. We hope to change the minds of some superdelegates, but we know this will be very difficult to do. Still, we will try, since so many people have supported Senator Sanders. If we fail, rest assured that we will be strong supporters of Ms. Clinton in her race against Donald Trump."

But the quotes in the New York Times story were nothing like this. Instead, I read:

“It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer,” said Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, in a statement.

“Secretary Clinton does not have and will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination,” the statement continued.

“She will be dependent on superdelegates who do not vote until July 25 and who can change their minds between now and then.”

This reeks of sore loser -- especially since Sanders has railed against the ability of superdelegates to overturn the will of voters in the Democratic primaries. Who, it turns out, gave Clinton millions more votes and hundreds more pledged delegates than Sanders. 

Yet now Sanders is signaling that he will try to overturn the will of the clear majority of primary voters by getting superdelegates to give him the presidential nomination that he wasn't able to win in a fair fight with Clinton. 

I understand how tough it is to go through a bruising race for the Democratic presidential nomination and come up short. I also realize how passionate Sanders supporters are about their favored candidate. 

Both Sanders and his supporters need to do the Golden Rule thing, though: imagine how they would feel if things had turned out differently, and today the Associated Press had declared Bernie Sanders to be the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic party -- having won enough pledged delegates and the support of enough superdelegates to put him over the top.

They would be freaking outraged if a spokesperson for the Clinton campaign had said something like:

"Sure, Sanders has gotten the majority of votes and delegates. But this doesn't matter, because we're going to do our best to convince superdelegates that Clinton is the more electable candidate. America isn't ready to elect a socialist as president, no matter how many Democratic voters think otherwise."

They'd be screaming about the unfairness of Democratic party insiders being able to overturn the will of the majority of primary voters. 

Yet this is exactly what Sanders says he is intending to do. 

Along with most other supporters of Hillary Clinton, I have a lot of fondness and respect for Bernie Sanders. His positions aren't hugely different from Clinton's, but I like his unique passion and genuineness. Sanders has brought issues to the nation's attention that needed to be in the spotlight. 

Kudos to him for that. I'm worried, though, that Sanders is going to fritter away much of that goodwill by engaging in a mean-spirited, fruitless battle to achieve through superdelegates what he couldn't achieve through the primary process.

If he spends the time between now and the Democratic convention trying to take the nomination away from Clinton that she has fairly won, this is going to make progressives like me want to shun Sanders -- because it irks when he is trying to do to Clinton what he wouldn't have wanted done to him, if he'd won the majority of primary votes and delegates.

Some good ideas for making downtown Salem better

"If you designed a new downtown, what would it look like?" This week's Rapid Responder feature in the Statesman Journal asked a good question. 

The answers from people who live in Salem and some nearby towns were equally good.

Below I've excerpted cogent parts of the responses (leaving out the names of the people), arranging them in categories. Some responses could have gone in several categories, so I picked the one that seemed the best fit.

I'll comment on the Numero Uno Most Frequently Mentioned category -- Bike and pedestrian friendly, streetscaped, fewer lanes -- after the responses.

Diverse vibrant energy
Diversity... venue for bands... lots of cool murals... large group workouts at Riverfront Park... actual food truck pod like the ones in Portland... put event posters or art in vacant windows... multi-age, multi-income... one or two restaurants/bars, offering some sort of evening entertainment, open on each block... vibrant energy which transitions from work to fun from 6 p.m. to at least midnight... remove the 3-hour parking restriction at 7 p.m.

Clean, bright, decorated
Cleaned up downtown... replace or wash the awnings... wash or paint the buildings... return buildings to their original facades.... add some color!... fix business and city council relationships so Christmas decorations and holiday decorations return... cleanliness, attractive decorations, adequate lighting... extensive plantings, and floral baskets

Bike and pedestrian friendly, streetscaped, fewer lanes
Remove some lanes of traffic on Liberty Street and divert cars around the core... close off the center to traffic, encourage parking outside the core and lots of green plazas for relaxing... Salem should have diverted the cross through traffic away from the main arteries for ease to walk around and to close down streets for events... pedestrian and bicycle protection... pedestrian friendly streets... widened sidewalks... comprehensive streetscape... replacement of the central streets with pedestrian malls having trees and benches... streetscapes like the concepts drawings that have been published in the past

Like the old days
Salem’s downtown should look like it did 100 years ago... compact, walkable... people got around easily without cars and the transit system was robust... Salem in the 1950s. The stores you liked were all there.

Safe
Safe... do not tolerate or enable disrespect, lawbreaking or vagrancy

Affordable housing
Regulate housing costs, so people can afford to live here in Salem... starts with much living space, with affordable places for young and working people... more people living there

Riverfront
Leave a view of the riverfront... Salem should have put downtown on the river

Adequate parking
Ample parking... parking continues to be appalling... restrict truck deliveries from shopping hours... parking; I hate the parking problems... only problem is parking, so the council hasn’t fixed that problem

Better planning
Council needs to do more, and the mayor, to encourage downtown growth... hire a talented city planner/urban designer... a Central Salem Plan 2025 

Architecture
Quality architecture, with careful signing... preserved historic buildings... plazas for outdoor dining and displays

Mass transit
More bus service, especially weekends and late nights... add robust public transportation

Excellent ideas. Especially, in my view, the calls to make downtown Salem more cyclist and pedestrian friendly, with attractive streetscaping, and fewer street lanes.

I've just started reading a book authored by the former New York City transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, and Seth Solomonow called "Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution." Here's an excerpt from the Introduction that echoes what many of the Rapid Responders here in Salem said.

During an intense, six-year period under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City proved to itself, the nation, and the world that almost everything that was assumed about how urban streets operate was wrong.

Real-world experience showed that reducing the number of lanes on carefully selected streets or closing them entirely not only provided pedestrian space and breathed new life into neighborhoods, but actually improved traffic.

Simply painting part of a street to make it into a plaza, bike, or bus lane not only made the street safer, it also improved traffic and increased bike and pedestrian foot traffic and helped local businesses to prosper.

The revival of the city's transportation network was accomplished without bulldozing a single neighborhood or razing a single building.

It was cheap -- absurdly cheap -- compared with the billions of dollars American cities have spent annually building new streetcar and light rail lines and rehabilitating or replacing aging roads and bridges.

And it was fast, installed in days and weeks using almost do-it-yourself tactics: paint, planters, lights, signs, signals, and surplus stone. Overnight, centuries-old roads turned into pedestrian oases atop space that had been there all along, hidden in plain sight.

Streetfight has numerous photos of how cities around the world have transformed their streets. The book's web site has some of them. Here are screenshots of "before" and "after" photos of how San Francisco altered the area where Seventeenth and Castro streets meet Market Street.

Before

After

Salem has lots of streets that resemble the "before" image: oceans of ugly asphalt that are hugely uninviting for people.

As Sadik-Khan says, it costs much less to make a street bike and pedestrian friendly than to build the multi-laned monstrosities that do little or nothing to ease traffic congestion, while discouraging the cyclists and walkers who are key to making a neighborhood economically vibrant and attractive. 

It's important to keep in mind that aside from drive-throughs, nobody spends money at a shop or business while sitting in their car. Vehicles in motion don't contribute anything to retail sales. Smart cities recognize this.