HinesSight

Why being critical and contentious is a must for citizen activists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coyne writes (emphasis added in bold):

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who killed Salem's First Wednesday? Clueless city officials.

Thank you, Vicki Tarbox, for mourning the demise of the First Wednesday events in Salem, Oregon. Your letter to the editor in today's Statesman Journal asks some great questions.

After sharing it, I'll reveal evidence implicating the culprit who killed First Wednesday: City Manager Linda Norris and her accomplices on the Salem City Council. 

Here's Tarbox's letter:

Every year we look forward to First Wednesday in December. All the brightly lit and crowded stores, carolers in Dickensian costumes, food offerings and treats; everything for the holidays!

We went downtown on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 3, and there was nothing. Zip, zilch, nada, nothing.

What has happened in a year? Where is the Christmas spirit in downtown Salem? Where is First Wednesday?

Other towns, including Corvallis, Eugene and Bend, host a “first” day of the month. When is ours? Has it changed?

Where is the “vibrant downtown” I keep reading about?

How very sad for downtown Salem.

Vicki Tarbox
Salem

I agree. It is very sad.

Salem's downtown has a lot of untapped potential. A big reason why downtown continues to struggle is the cluelessness of City officials who have undermined promotional efforts in our town's Historic District core.

The first thing to know is this: in 2013 City Manager Linda Norris and her City Council cronies dissolved the Salem Downtown Partnership organization that had been responsible for First Wednesday, using Economic Improvement District (EID) funds supplied by downtown businesses.

I wrote about this travesty in "Should Salem City Manager be known as Exalted Emperor Linda Norris?"

This is amazing. Amazingly disturbing.

The top non-elected city official dissolves a duly organized downtown organization so she can take control of the group's money. Then chooses to keep records of her Imperial Pronouncements secret. I can't believe this would be tolerated even in Tony Soprano's New Jersey, much less in supposedly squeaky-clean Oregon.

Worse, the story behind Norris' takeover of the downtown organization is just as disturbing as the action itself. I revealed this in "City of Salem takes over Salem Downtown Partnership for lousy reasons."

A few days ago I talked with someone in-the-know about how the Salem (Oregon) City Manager, Linda Norris, ended up controlling on her own $215,000 in Economic Improvement District funds paid by downtown businesses.

It was a lengthy conversation. This person asked to talk with me because he/she was so disturbed about how the EID was handled, and liked my blog-reporting on other downtown issues.

I was on the phone with this person for about 90 minutes. I learned a lot about how the City of Salem ended up cancelling the contract Salem Downtown Partnership had to administer the Economic Improvement District (EID) money. 

The headline, so to speak, is this:

Norris and other City of Salem staff set up Salem Downtown Partnership to fail. Instead of working cooperatively and collaboratively with this duly-selected organization that represented downtown businesses, the City undermined its efforts in various ways.

Not surprisingly, downtown businesses weren't happy with the City Manager waltzing in, imperiously taking over the duly-appointed downtown organization and the EID funds contributed by those businesses, then doing a horrible job promoting downtown.

in May 2014 the business owners voted the EID out of existence in a show of no confidence for City Manager Norris and her secretive band of hand-picked advisory committee members (astoundingly, Norris served as the one-person "board of directors" for the fake downtown organization she set up after usurping the EID funds).

The Statesman Journal story about this ends with:

Salem City Manager Linda Norris said the city had received written objections from property owners representing nearly 36 percent of the assessment. That gave opponents of the EID sufficient numbers to bring the program to an abrupt end.

Roughly 16 months ago, the city took over administration of the EID after terminating a contract with Salem Downtown Partnership, a private group. The Salem City Manager and a 16-member steering committee have since directed the use of EID.

Some downtown business interests have praised efforts to make the area more inviting to shoppers, especially the Downtown Clean Team.

Critics, however, resented the city's control of EID funds and asserted that downtown promotions, such as First Wednesday, had become ineffective. 

Hope this helps answer your questions, Ms. Tarbox. First Wednesday was doing fine until City Manager Norris jumped in and screwed things up.

Annoyingly, the city councilor who represents downtown, Chuck Bennett, not only didn't do anything to stop this; I'm pretty sure he made the motion at a city council meeting that made it possible for spending the EID funds to be overseen by the City Manager rather than a representative group of downtown business owners.

On Wednesdays I have a Tai Chi class from 4:30 to 6:00 pm on Court Street, above the Dairy Lunch diner. I used to walk out of class on the first Wednesday of each month and be met with an extra dose of people on the sidewalks, enjoying a special promotional event.

Now, first Wednesday looks just every other day of the week. Few people are downtown. No sense of excitement or vitality. Yes, there are great restaurants, coffee houses, bars, and other places to visit downtown. That hasn't changed.

First Wednesday has, though. Blame City Manager Linda Norris and Salem city councilors for that.

Truth Bomb #8: the Statesman Journal is trying to trick Salem

The Statesman Journal is, as the saying goes, "dead to me." After 37 years of being a loyal subscriber to Salem's community newspaper, it pains me to come to this conclusion.

But for good reasons, I no longer trust the paper to report local news fully and accurately. I've got lots of company.

Confidence in the Statesman Journal seems to be at an all-time low, based on what I hear from a wide variety of people. Many have given up completely on reading the paper. Others, like me, continue to subscribe even though we've disturbed by the SJ's loss of journalistic integrity.

My new Strange Up Salem column in Salem Weekly is "Don't be tricked by the Statesman Journal." You can read it below.

Learn how Salemians are being deceived by the newspaper's recently-arrived Gannett executives whose allegiance is to making money for their corporate masters, not to informing citizens about what's really happening in this town.

Don’t be tricked by the Statesman Journal

I no longer trust our so-called “community newspaper.”

I’ve been a subscriber since 1977. Most of that time, I believed the Statesman Journal cared about reporting local news truthfully, fairly, completely.

No longer. Along with many others, I now see the paper as being one of the biggest obstacles to improving Salem. Without a well-informed citizenry, a town is easily hijacked by special interests.

I’ve experienced first-hand how the current crop of SJ executives hired by the Gannett Corporation have sacrificed their journalistic integrity.

Six months ago a Statesman Journal investigative reporter was enthused about my release of a tell-all report, “Outrage: Salem’s U.S. Bank tree killings.” 

Subtitle: “The true story of how City officials and the bank president cut down five large, healthy, beautiful downtown trees for no good reason, and misled citizens about why they did it. 

A story was written. It was scheduled for front-page publication. Then the piece was killed by the executive editor, Michael Davis, a Gannett newcomer to Salem. 

Earlier Davis had told me that my report provided a glimpse into how power was exerted in Salem. At least he was right about that.

Having forsaken its watchdog role, the Statesman Journal has become a cog in the machine that tries to run Salem. The paper aligns with the Chamber of Commerce types who are its main advertisers; it kowtows to City officials elected and appointed with Chamber support.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when the newspaper squashed an investigative story that cast light on how the power game is played in Salem. 

I’ve also filed ethics complaints with SJ executives and the Gannett Corporation about important factual errors in editorials that were pointed out to editorial page editor Dick Hughes, but left uncorrected.

Never got a response about the errors. Wasn’t told why the tree story was killed. And Davis ignored invitations to meet with me and other disgruntled subscribers about the paper’s coverage of local issues. 

So the Statesman Journal not only refuses to shine a light on shadowy Salem politics and policies, it won’t look at its own shortcomings. 

What’s going on here is journalistic sleight-of-hand, like a magician who misdirects your attention to a shiny object while picking your pocket.

The Statesman Journal has become overly filled with “shiny objects.” Kid’s page. Human interest pieces. Outdoor articles. Reader responses. Volunteer and non-profit organization showcasing.

All this would be fine if the newspaper was fulfilling its journalistic responsibility to tell readers about what is going on with serious stuff in Salem.

Third Bridge shenanigans. Wasteful City of Salem spending. Back-room dealmaking at City Hall. A shamefully inadequate transit system. Incoherent police facility planning. 

There’s no commitment to local in-depth, analytic, and investigative reporting. Readers have learned more about the blind bison than the unneeded half billion dollar third bridge we’re being asked to pay for.

Find other ways to keep informed. Don’t be fooled by the Statesman Journal’s trickery.

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Strange Up Salem seeks to lift our city’s Blah Curse. Give us a Facebook like. Brian Hines blogs at hinesblog.com

Salem Statesman Journal hit with journalistic ethics complaints

Time for another Truth Bomb!

Salem's community newspaper, the Statesman Journal, no longer cares about accuracy in its reporting and editorializing.

I've got good reasons for saying this after filing several ethics complaints with both the Statesman Journal and the Gannett Corporation -- which owns the paper.

Remember when the newspaper had a "corrections" feature? And Statesman Journal staff wanted to make stories as accurate and truthful as possible? As a long-time subscriber (37 years), I sure do.

Those days are gone. Below you can read solid evidence for this conclusion. 

In May of this year I filed an ethics complaint with Garrett Flynn, an attorney who handles complaints about ethics violations for Gannett.

I did this after getting no response from Statesman Journal executives about my well-documented September 2013 complaint that editorial page editor Dick Hughes had knowingly and willfully published false information about the proposed "land grab" of part of Riverfront Park for an access road to a Pringle Square apartment complex.

Before and after Hughes' editorial appeared, I'd told him that National Park Service approval of this proposal wasn't a maybe; it was a must. I knew this because I'd talked with the state government official who coordinates the applications, and the City of Salem had stated this in a staff report.

Because Hughes ignored the fact that the "6-f conversion process" would take 1-2 years or more, during which the Pringle Square developers would be unable to use any portion of Riverfront Park for access to the development, the editorial's insistence that construction of the apartments could start immediately was clearly wrong. 

Yet Hughes, executive editor Michael Davis, and other members of the editorial board were utterly uncaring about having this error pointed out to them. I got some dismissive comments back from Dick Hughes, but he didn't offer any evidence that I was wrong and he was right. 

So when someone told me that he'd made his own journalistic ethics complaint to Gannett about another instance of Statesman Journal flawed reporting, I learned how to contact Garrett Flynn. Here's my first email to him, sent in May 2014.

Mr. Flynn, 

...I asked _______ how he made his complaint. I was directed to a Gannett website page that says you are the person who deals with journalistic ethics complaints.

 

This spurred me to share my own ethics complaint that was made directly to Statesman Journal executives in September 2013. I never heard back from them. At that time I wasn’t aware that an ethics complaint could be filed with you. So now I am sharing a PDF file of three email messages regarding what, in my view, is a clear violation of the Gannett Code of Ethics. Consider this a formal complaint.

 

Download Emails sent to SJ staff

 

In short, editorial page editor Dick Hughes and other Statesman Journal staff refused to correct serious factual errors in a 2013 draft editorial that were repeatedly pointed out to them — both before and after publication in the print newspaper. 

 

Among other principles of ethical conduct in the Code of Ethics, I pointed out these in my third email to Statesman Journal staff where I requested an ethics inquiry:

We will hold factual information in opinion columns and editorials to the same standards of accuracy as news stories.

 

We will correct errors promptly.

I have attached a seven page PDF file that contains the content of the three emails sent to Statesman Journal staff. I added emphasis to the content in boldface to make it easier for you to pick out the most pertinent parts. 

Download Emails sent to SJ staff

 

You will note that I begin my first email with a mention that I have been a critic of the Statesman Journal because I care about the newspaper, having been a subscriber since 1977. I am not eager or pleased to be making this complaint to you, but I am concerned about a pattern of news and editorial page problems that seemingly violate journalistic ethics — where factual errors are pointed out to Statesman Journal staff, but corrections aren’t made. 

 

...I’ll also take the liberty of sharing links to some blog posts I wrote about an earlier editorial episode regarding Dick Hughes which fits with the pattern of him ignoring factual information in his editorials. In fact, in the third blog link below I document that when Hughes was presented with clear factual errors, he yelled “This is just opinion!” At the time, as now, this struck me as a serious violation of editorial page writing.

 

I’ve been an avid regular blogger for ten years. I’ve written thousands of posts over that time. I always do my best to insure that what I write about is based on accurate factual information. Then my opinions are based on those facts. It deeply bothers me, as a “mere” blogger, to see the Statesman Journal failing to live up to those ethical standards. Here are the links:

 

“Statesman Journal allows errors in Measure 49 editorial"

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2007/10/statesman-journ.html

 

“Salem’s newspaper gets an ‘F’ in journalism ethics”

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2007/10/salems-newspape.html

 

“Statesman Journal endorsement of Romney: pathetic editorial”

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2012/11/salem-statesman-journal-endorsement-of-romney-pathetic-editorial.html

 

I look forward to hearing from you. I’d be glad to clarify anything that isn’t clear in the material I’ve shared with you, or answer any questions you might have.

 

Sincerely,

Brian Hines

 

A few weeks later I added on another ethics complaint after Dick Hughes again mangled facts in an editorial. This time it was personal, because he screwed up a statement about me.

 

Garrett [Flynn], yesterday Dick Hughes, the editorial page editor at the Statesman Journal who is the focus of my previous ethics complaint, misquoted me in a lead Sunday editorial.

 

As before, I informed Mr. Hughes of the error and asked that a correction/apology appear in the newspaper. And as before, Mr. Hughes refused to correct an obvious factual error.

 

The nature of the error and Hughes’ refusal to acknowledge it is described in a blog post I wrote last night: "Giddily, I catch another Dick Hughes journalistic ethics violation"

 

...Please forward this message to the Gannett headquarters staff who are dealing with my previous complaint about the 2013 failure of Mr. Hughes to acknowledge and correct another factual error in a Statesman Journal editorial.

 

Also, won’t I be hearing something back from Gannett staff, since my ethics complaints aren’t anonymous? When a customer contacts “customer service,” he/she expects to get a response. In my case, I consider that my Statesman Journal subscription entitles me to factual news and opinion. Yet I’m not getting when I paid for when SJ staff refuse to correct factual errors — hence, my complaints.

 

Thanks,

Brian Hines

 

Irritatingly, I never heard anything about the outcome of either Gannett ethics complaint. Mr. Flynn explained that the staff who handle these aren't obliged to tell the person making a complaint how it was handled. Hopefully Dick Hughes was required to get some remedial education in editorial writing, but I have no way of knowing if this happened.

 

This is ridiculous. But such is the sorry state of Gannett journalism these days.

 

I pointed out factual errors to Statesman Journal executives and was brushed off. I then complained to the Gannett central ethics coordinator, and heard nothing back. Apparently the policy at Gannett and the Statesman Journal is that truthfulness and accuracy in reporting/editorializing doesn't matter -- only maximizing revenue does.

 

Pathetic. 

 

As a continuation to this post I'll copy in my emails to Statesman Journal staff. Blunt words, but richly deserved.

Truth Bomb #7: Salem City Manager's disturbing Eugene past

"You should look into what Linda Norris did in Eugene, when she was City Manager there." When somebody told me this, naturally my curiosity was aroused. 

Currently Linda Norris is Salem's City Manager.

This is an important position, arguably more powerful than the Mayor. The Mayor hires the City Manager, then the City Manager is responsible for hiring other employees. Plus, of course, managing city business.

I wasn't even aware that Norris had been Eugene's City Manager prior to coming to Salem. I asked the person who made the you should look into comment what Norris had done in Eugene that was disturbing.

"I'm not sure," I was told. "I just heard that it didn't make Norris look good." Well, after some Google research I can confirm the truth of that.

Linda Norris did indeed do some distrubing stuff during her stint as Eugene's interim City Manager. In my opinion, those actions throw light on the City of Salem's current corporate-friendly and ordinary citizen-unfriendly policies.

But as the saying goes, I'll report in this most recent Truth Bomb of my series, you can decide.

Here's the step-by-step facts the Great God Google revealed to me. 

(1) According to a Eugene Weekly story, Linda Norris was interim City Manager for less than a year. She left to take an executive position with Hyundai, which had a semiconductor plant in Eugene. Later, in 2001, Huyndai changed its name to Hynix.

Here's how Eugene Weekly summed up part of the City Manager history in a 2007 article (when Hyuyndai had become Hynix):
Download Eugene Weekly : Coverstory : 7.26.07 | eugeneweekly.com

Mike Gleason, 1981-1996, 15 years. Resigned after widespread criticism that he was ignoring council direction, providing biased or inadequate information and pursuing his own pro-development agenda, especially in giving huge tax breaks to Hynix. 

Linda Norris, 1996, less than a year. The interim manager left for a management job at Hynix.

Warren Wong, 1996-1997, one year. The interim manager also went on to a manager stint at Hynix. He now manages the Lane County Fairgrounds.

(2) So Norris, along with her Eugene City Manager successor, went to work for Hyundai before the company changed its name to Hynix. Who knows the reason why? We can say, though, that Linda Norris did a big favor for Hyundai while she was interim City Manager. 

Here's a portion of a December 28, 1995 Eugene Register-Guard story:

Hyundai chalked up another victory with regulators on Wednesday, winning permission to work around-the-clock at its west Eugene site, despite protests by neighbors who could be disturbed by nighttime excavation and construction.

Acting City Manager Linda Norris signed the noise variance late Thursday, ending a two-week public comment period that drew seven letters in opposition to Hyundai's plan to work 24 hours a day and one letter supporting the company's request.

The variance lets Hyundai operate bulldozers, backhoes and other equipment at night, overriding a city ordinance that bans noisy work between 7 pm and 7 am.

Norris' ruling is important for Hyundai, which has said it needs to work nonstop to complete its computer chip factory in 12 months -- six months quicker than originally planned. Each day the factory is up and running it will rack up $6.7 million in chip sales, the company has said.

(3) Let's make that a big controversial favor for Hyundai, because people who lived near the construction site complained vociferously about the nonstop construction. See:
Download Hubbub over Hyundai hubbub

Here's a photo of how the piece starts (wasn't able to copy this "ancient" 1996 file). Click the image to enlarge.

That piece says the variance was extended until July 4,1996. I'm not sure what happened between then and April 20, 1997. On that date the Register-Guard reported the noise variance had been overturned by a hearings officer after an appeal by the disturbed neighbors of the Hyundai plant.

All is quiet on Eugene's western front, thanks to a hearings official's decision to ban noisy nighttime work on Hyundai's computer chip factory at the end of West 18th Avenue. 

In a ruling released Thursday, Milo Meacham turned down Hyundai's request for a six-month variance from the local noise ordinance. That means contractors can't operate trucks or other noisy equipment between 7 pm and 7 am.

The ruling overturns Assistant City Manager Linda Norris' Feb. 7 decision to issue the variance. And it upholds appeals by 10 people worried that Hyundai's nighttime noise disturbs west Eugene residents.

(4) In August 1997, Linda Norris left her City of Eugene job and became the human resources director for Hyundai. This was after, as we've seen, Hyundai had been able to construct its computer chip plant non-stop around the clock for quite a few months because Norris had issued a noise variance in favor of Hyundai.

After neighbors complained the construction noise and lights were driving them, their animals, and wildlife crazy, a hearings officer eventually overturned Norris' variance. But, as noted above, every day Hyundai saved by shortening the construction period was estimated to bring the company $6.7 million in chip sales.

Quite a coincidence -- if you can call it that. Linda Norris does Hyundai a big controversial favor, then becomes the Human Resources director of Hyundai. Well, such is the way the world works these days. 

(Footnote: in 2008 Hynix closed the Eugene computer chip plant after getting many millions of dollars in tax breaks and other incentives, putting more than 1,100 employees and 300 contractors out of work. After wrecking the environment, some in Eugene said. This also is how the world works these days.)
Download Eugene chip plant Hynix will close, erasing 1,400 jobs | OregonLive.com
Download Eugene Weekly : Coverstory : 7.31.08 | eugeneweekly.com

Truth Bomb #6: Salem's citizens are too politically passive

After writing my previous Truth Bomb, "Salemians were excluded from police facility planning," that post got a marvelous comment about how people here put up with political crap that wouldn't be tolerated in Portland, Eugene, or Corvallis.

The commenter was Geronimo Tagatac, a really interesting guy. This is from a 2010 profile of him in the Statesman Journal.
Download Sunday_Profile_Geronimo_Tagatac

Salem fiction writer Geronimo Tagatac draws from revelations as varied as a cubicle worker's stark humor, the flashbacks of U.S. Special Forces operations to the wisdom of immigrant Filipino farmworkers picking fruit in northern California.

For Tagatac, 69, it's crafted from as much imagination as from his experiences. In his travels, Tagatac has skirted all over the globe, from Patagonia to the dusty outback of China in Xian to the Vietnamese beaches of Hoi An.

During the Vietnam War, he was a member of the elite U.S. Special Forces. Most recently, he was a civil servant in the Oregon state government for 16 years. For awhile, he danced modern and ballet. He was a folk-singer. He was a wanderer.

Dude, you graduated from San Jose State. Me too! What I like to call the "Stanford of the South Bay" (entirely inaccurately). And you're a Ph.D. dropout. Me too!

Here's what Tagatac said in his comment.

The problem isn't, at its heart, the city council. It's the overall community that elects the city council and is willing to live with its lack of transparency and subservience to the chamber of commerce.

Yes, there's a progressive, reform-minded subculture in Salem, but it's simply not large enough or influential enough to stop what's been going on for decades.

The Corvallis, Eugene, and Portland communities would never put up with such behavior on the part of their elected representatives, the violations of the public meetings law, the conflicts of interest, etc.

Making closed-door deals with a bank to cut down trees would be political suicide in those communities.

The reason that the Salem city council does these things is that they know that the community won't hold them accountable. And there are likely to be few or no whistleblowers to embarrass them, other than yourself and a handful of others.

So true.

Tagatac said what I've been thinking, better than I could have myself, the mark of a good writer. Speaking for the small cadre of serious citizen activists here in Salem, often it feels like you're leading a charge across the battlefield where, when you look back, hardly anybody else is following.

There are good reasons for the passivity of Salem's citizenry.

Willamette University is no U. of O. or Oregon State. Students there rarely get involved in shaking things up in Salem. We don't have a critical mass of environmental, alternative transportation, social justice, or any other sort of activists.

People here strike me as unduly polite.

They either are afraid of making waves, or they are wary of the waves crashing back upon them via political retribution. (The current crop of City officials look nice on the outside, but are notoriously mean-spirited on the inside.)

Thus I think Tagatac hit the bullseye in his comment.

Salem has gotten the sort of city government that it deserves: unethical, dismissive of the broad public interest, controlled by the Chamber of Commerce and this town's version of the "1%." 

Our next-to-useless daily newspaper gets away with froth-filled stories and toothless investigative reporting because no one other than me and a few others is publicly calling them out on their journalistic malpractice. 

Not much will change in Salem until more people have the guts to speak out and act up. 

Truth Bomb #5: Salemians were excluded from police facility planning

Here's a non-shocker: an elected official, in this case Salem Mayor Anna Peterson, not telling the truth.

Fortunately, this town has a blogger superhero -- humble ME! --who is ready, willing, and able to stand up against City Hall truth-shaders with his Truth Bomb superpower.

Today I wield it against a decidedly false statement by Peterson in a newspaper story about a blue ribbon panel charged with considering options for Civic Center renovations and construction of a new police facility.
Download Panel reviews plans for new Salem police station

To date, talk of spending millions of dollars to make the civic center safer and build a 75,000-square-foot police station has produced a lukewarm response, at best, from Salem residents. Critics assert that the city settled on one plan for the civic center and excluded the public from the decision-making process— allegations the mayor strongly denies.

Well, the mayor can deny all she wants, but facts don't lie.

I've dug deep into how City officials decided on their own that a new police facility should be built next to Mirror Pond just north of the current Civic Center structure, complete with very expensive underground parking.

Contrary to what Mayor Peterson says, there was no attempt to involve Salem's citizens in this all-important decision.

All-important, because once the Civic Center location was settled on, the price tag for a new police facility was destined to be much higher -- maybe even double -- the cost of building elsewhere. Read all about it in  "Geoffrey James tells City of Salem how to save $30 million."

The factual foundations of this Truth Bomb are described in my previous blog posts on this topic. These have been shared with City officials. No one has proven me wrong. They just keep on repeating the same tired falsity about citizens having a chance to be involved with the Civic Center siting decision. 

Wrong. See:

"How the City of Salem decided to build a new police facility at the Civic Center"
"How City of Salem planned police facility in secretive manner"
"City of Salem planned new police facility in backwards way"
"Will Salem Mayor Anna Peterson admit she spoke falsely?"

Here's some excerpts from these truth-telling posts.

--------------
The City of Salem decided to build a new police facility at the Civic Center without any public hearings or public discussion. City staff and the Mayor made this decision. 
--------------

Investigative blogger that I am, it gives me great pride to share the results of my non-award-winning research into how officials at the City of Salem (Oregon) spent five years secretively planning a $70 million -- now $80 million -- new police facility, along with renovations to the Civic Center.

Citizen involvement in all this by, you know, those people who pay the bills for spendy government projects, was virtually zero. Nil. Nada. Zilch. 
--------------

There was basically no opportunity for citizens to be involved with planning for a new police facility, or to weigh in on the pluses and minuses of locating this facility in a brand new building at the Civic Center. Even City Council members complained they were kept in the dark about this project.
--------------

...This is Day 1 of the Mayor Anna Peterson apology/retraction watch. No response yet to the email I sent her, with a cc to the Salem City Council... I said what I did after listening to Peterson make a preachy, inaccurate mini-speech during a testy exchange at last night's City Council meeting.

... I couldn't believe that Mayor Peterson was actually claiming that the process used to select the Civic Center as the best location for a new police facility had been open to public view, and offered citizens good opportunities to weigh in on the decision.

...I believe an apology and retraction is in order. The Mayor of Salem shouldn't use the City Council podium as a soapbox for spreading inaccurate information. This degrades trust in City government, which already is low. 

Like the saying goes, we all are entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. I have done my best to uncover the facts about how the City made a decision to site a new police facility at the Civic Center. I’ve asked City staff to correct any misunderstandings I might have. None were pointed out.

 

If you have new information to share on this issue, please send it to me with appropriate factual documentation. Otherwise I will continue to assume that what I said is true: "The City of Salem decided to build a new police facility at the Civic Center without any public hearings or public discussion. City staff and the Mayor made this decision.” 

Fortunately, Salem Community Vision is reporting that the task force appointed by Mayor Peterson will be charged with looking into alternative sites for a new police facility.

Also the article says that the charge of the committee is to "develop a set of recommendations for the civic center site, 555 Liberty Street SE, and present them to Salem City Council." But the chair of the committee told our representative, Geoff James, that "the committee will look at all options" for siting the police facility. That's good news, because the Mayor once said in a council meeting that the committee would not be allowed to "think outside the box." 

Be assured that our representative on the blue ribbon task force will be thinking outside the box, and he will be advocating strongly for an adequate but affordable new police facility, and an affordable seismic upgrade to our civic center, including the library.

Hopefully Peterson has finally realized that a decision about where a new police station should be located deserves broad community input after open consideration of a range of siting options, rather than being made unilaterally by City officials behind closed doors.

Truth Bomb #4: City of Salem charges me $117 to get a one page email

Long-time observers of what goes on in Salem, Oregon's city government tell me that the current crop of officials at City Hall are the most secretive, closed-door'ish, and dismissive of citizen involvement they've ever seen.

I believe them. 

I could give lots of reasons from my own experience. Here's a single shocking story that recently happened to me.

After I made a public records request for documents City officials are required to share with the public, I was charged $117 for one brief email message that came close to what I had requested, but wasn't really what I was looking for.

I'll explain the further outrageousness of how the City of Salem handled my public records request. 

First, the hourly cost of the three people who handled my request ranged from $81 to $110 an hour. But what I asked for wasn't complicated. It involved a motion by a city councilor to initiate changes to the downtown parking policies.

“Documents (including emails) relating to the 7-part motion made by Councilor Clem at the August 25 City Council meeting that directs staff to prepare and present an ordinance amending SRC Chapter 102. I’m particularly interested in documents relating to item (2) of the motion regarding removing restrictions on the State St. lot.”

I assumed that a mid-level staffer of some sort would attend to my request. But when I got this message from someone in the Recorder's Office, I was blown away by the hourly staff rates.

Mr. Hines, the deposit amount required to fulfill your request is $116.90. This includes:

$ 20.16        .25 hrs review time by the Assistant City Attorney at $80.64/hr
   41.50        .50 hrs staff time @ $82.99/hr
   55.24        .50 hrs staff time @ $110.47/hr
$116.90        Total

I asked this person to let me know who was getting paid $82.99 and $110.47 an hour to respond to a citizen's simple public records request. Here's the answer I got.

Mr. Hines, the staff involved in your request are Linda Norris, City Manager, burden rate $110.47/hr, and Kacey Duncan, Deputy City Manager, burden rate $82.99/hr.

Are you freaking kidding me!?, I thought. This is like President Obama and Vice-President Biden personally dealing with a federal FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request.

Why are the City Manager and Deputy City Manager handling my request to get documents relating to a city councilor's motion? Don't they have better things to do, like managing an enterprise with a half billion dollar annual budget?

Yesterday the Associated Press ran a story, "Ferguson demands high fees to turn over city files." 

Officials in Ferguson, Missouri, are charging nearly 10 times the cost of some of their own employees' salaries before they will agree to turn over files under public records laws about the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

In one case, it billed The Associated Press $135 an hour — for nearly a day's work — merely to retrieve a handful of email accounts since the shooting. That fee compares with an entry-level, hourly salary of $13.90 in the city clerk's office, and it didn't include costs to review the emails or release them. The AP has not paid for the search because it has yet to negotiate the cost.

Well, I was charged $97 an hour to retrieve some documents -- less than Ferguson, but still way too high. As the AP story goes on to say:

Price-gouging for government files is one way that local, state and federal agencies have responded to requests for potentially embarrassing information they may not want released. Open records laws are designed to give the public access to government records at little or no cost, and have historically exposed waste, wrongdoing and corruption.

I thought this was an exorbitant hourly rate, but gave the Recorder's Office a check for $116.90 anyway. Why? Because I'm a crazy citizen activist. And my birthday was coming up. (I've got a thing for public records requests.)

When I got a PDF file containing a bunch of documents, at first glance I was pleased. But upon closer inspection, I realized that the City Manager and Deputy City Manager hadn't given me what I asked for. I wrote back to the person in the Recorder's Office I'd been dealing with.

Thanks for sending this batch of documents. However, all but one weren’t what I asked for, so the PDF file isn’t responsive to my public records request. Which was…

“Documents (including emails) relating to the 7-part motion made by Councilor Clem at the August 25 City Council meeting that directs staff to prepare and present an ordinance amending SRC Chapter 102. I’m particularly interested in documents relating to item (2) of the motion regarding removing restrictions on the State St. lot.”

After reviewing them, I’m quite sure all but one of the documents/emails I received had to do with a motion Clem made at the August 11 meeting, directing staff to prepare a report on downtown parking for the August 25 meeting. This is interesting stuff, but not what I requested.

Since there were considerable emails regarding Clem’s August 11 motion, seemingly there should be emails and/or other documents relating to Clem’s 7-part August 25 motion. Yet I wasn’t given any directly relating to the 7-part motion. One email from Councilor Bennett indirectly referred to the motion.

Having been informed who was handling my request, I’ve cc’d them on this message. I look forward to either receiving documents responsive to my public records request, or getting confirmation that no such addiitonal records exist. In that case, naturally I’d like to get a substantial refund on what I paid for the request, since so far only one email has been sent to me that pertains to this request. 

Thanks.  — Brian HInes

Soon I got an email from the City Attorney. 

 

Mr. Hines:

 

The records previously provided are all the city public records responsive to your request.  As to your statement that the records provided are not responsive, we disagree.  The August 11, 2014 Council motion and August 25, 2014 staff report are related to the August 25, 2014 motion referenced in your request.

 

Your request broadly sought documents "related" to the August 25, 2014 motion.  Outside of stating that you were "particularly interested" in "item (2)" of the motion, your request did not contain any other limitation.  Without any clarification from the person making a records request, city staff must provide the records as requested.

 

In the future, you may want to provide additional clarification in your written request so to limit the amount of staff time and documents provided.

 

Daniel B. Atchison
City Attorney
City of Salem

 

This was, in my opinion, complete bullshit. I told the City Attorney just that. But using nicer words.

 

Dan, I disagree that public records about the August 11 motion are “related” to the August 25 motion. If I’d wanted records about the August 11 motion I would have asked for them. Nothing in the records I got about the August 11 motion relate to the August 25 motion.

 

The August 11 motion concerned a staff report about the downtown parking situation. The August 25 motion was a specific 7-part motion about changes to the city ordinances governing downtown parking. 

 

How much more specific could I have been? I asked for documents related to the August 25 motion. Except for one email, you gave me documents related to the August 11 motion. 

 

Why didn’t you give me documents related to the formation of Salem, or the first city government in this town? Trace the connections back, and everything is related to everything else.

 

Lastly, I gave the PDF file to someone else interested in this subject before I’d had time to read the documents. I figured that they were responsive to my request. When I saw this person at a meeting, he told me “There’s nothing relevant there. Aside from one email, all the documents are about the August 11 motion.” 

 

This shows that an independent third party agreed with me that the documents you gave me weren’t about what I requested.

 

I’m still requesting a refund.  — Brian

 

This episode is depressingly typical of how City of Salem officlals fail to understand what the term "public servant" means.

 

Whenever they have a choice between representing the broad public interest and supporting open government, or representing special interests and keeping governmental deliberations secretive, almost always they choose the latter.

 

A citizen shouldn't be charged $117 to get one email that isn't really even what his public records request asked for. The highest paid officials in Salem city government shouldn't be responding to public records requests. When a citizen says "You didn't give me what I asked for," he shouldn't get a dismissive reply by the City Attorney.

 

There's a lot more to say about how the City of Salem is failing to abide by both the spirit and the letter of Oregon's public records law. But I'll save that for another Truth Bomb.

Truth Bomb #3: City of Salem kills trees for no good reason

Here's a dirty (or let's say, sawdusty) open secret: the City of Salem doesn't really care much about trees.

It allows beautiful healthy trees to be cut down when they don't need to, bowing to special interests rather than the broad public interest, often ignoring expert arborist advice in favor of making "political" tree removal decisions.

Yeah, this is Oregon. Tree country. Green Land. Environmentally proud.

So the gang at City Hall -- Mayor Anna Peterson, City Manager LInda Norris, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez, Urban Forester Jan Staszewski -- try to fool this town's many fervent tree lovers into believing that Salem's city government is with them.

Not true. Here's some of the reasons I say this with confidence.

Tree experts agree with me. I've talked with several of Salem's outstanding arborists. They've been blunt with me about what a crappy job City officials do with this town's street trees. They're infuriated by the B.S. going on here.

It seems that who you are, and who you know, all too often determines whether a tree lives or dies, is saved or is removed.

This is a horrible way to manage Salem's urban forest.

Citizens should be able to have confidence that the care of this town's street trees is founded on what's best for the community, not what a particular business or property owner wants done with publicly-owned trees.

Two of the five U.S. Bank trees

My "Outrage" report blew the cover on Salem's outrageous tree policies. Remember the five beautiful Japanese Zelkovas that graced downtown's State Street in front of U.S. Bank? I hope you do, because memories are all that remain of them after they were needlessly cut down in 2013.

Cut down for no good reason

I was so enraged by this senseless act of tree cruelty, I paid $726.61 to get public records (emails, memos, and such) from the City of Salem that told the true story of how Public Works Director Peter Fernandez ignored his own Shade Tree Advisory Committee, expert arborists, and many concerned citizens so he could keep a backroom deal with U.S. Bank President Ryan Allbritton to cut down the trees -- a deal made several freaking years before Allbritton even applied to have the Zelkovas removed. 

Outrageous, oh yeah. You can read all about it here.

Similar thing is happening now with three High Street trees. South of the Elsinore Theatre, on downtown's High Street, three large healthy trees are slated to be cut down. They aren't diseased. They aren't about to die. They aren't causing any problems with the sidewalk that require them to be removed.

No, Public Works Director Fernandez issued a removal order on Urban Forester Staszewski's recommendation because... well, I have no idea. The order admits that the trees are healthy and not causing any problems other than dropping leaves on the adjacent property owner's building. 

Which, duh, is what decidious trees do in the fall. 

I asked three expert Salem arborists, two of them currently Certified Arborists who have to abide by a code of ethics (unlike Staszewski, who isn't certified), to look at the trees. All of them agreed: the trees are healthy; they could benefit from judicious pruning and other care, having been neglected for a long time; they don't need to be removed.

One of the arborists, plainspoken Elwood Newhouse, started off his conversation with me with, "It's all bullshit." I agree. Read more in my "City of Salem kills more downtown trees for no good reason."

I wrote that post last April when Ira's Alley property owner Steve Ross told me he wanted to save the trees after learning Newhouse's opinion of them. Now they are back on the chopping block. Ross hasn't responded to my inquiry asking why. 

Salem Weekly recently published a story on this new tree outrage. 

City officials are allowing Salem Hospital to needlessly kill marvelous white oaks. This additional Kill the Trees debacle can be understood via a short video that should get tree lovers fired up.

 

You also can read about this issue in another Salem Weekly story, "Neighbors object to 'clear cutting' historic trees." And in a well-written letter to the editor in today's Statesman Journal.

Yesterday I took a walk in the area around Howard Hall. I had read that as many as 40 trees may be destroyed in order to make a parking lot there.

The trees there are majestic, tall and beautiful. They provide oxygen, shade, habitat and a rich environment for humans and non-humans who live in Salem. They are valuable.

In 2012 a popular movie was “The Lorax.” The Lorax spoke for the trees. He spoke against tree-cutting and pollution and sprawl. He spoke for clean air, clean streams and a healthy environment. I hope for the many children and adults who saw this movie that this was not just a “feel good” moment. Maybe it encouraged people to take action.

My understanding is that there is a tree ordinance in Salem that prevents the cutting of “significant” trees in Salem. Some of the trees on this property owned by the Salem Hospital are old Oregon white oaks. This ordinance received a variance from the city’s planning administrator.

Who speaks for the trees in Salem? Apparently not the city administrator.

Let’s speak for the trees and find a way to save them.

Lois Stark

Being a "Tree City USA" means nothing. Every year Salem's Mayor proudly hangs a banner in the City Council chambers showing that, once again, this town has earned Tree City USA status. 

Whoopty-doo. Do you know what this means? Next to nothing.

Thousands of cities in the United States have gotten the same designation, including 56 cities in Oregon. What would be unusual is for an Oregon city to not be a "Tree City USA." 

Here's all it takes to become one. 

1. A Tree Board or Department
2. A Tree Care Ordinance
3. A Community Forestry Program With an Annual Budget of at Least $2 Per Capita
4. An Arbor Day Observance and Proclamation

Salem may have a Tree City USA banner hanging on the wall, but no way does it deserve to be called a city that cares about its trees. 

It doesn't. Stumps don't lie. City officials have a nasty habit of cutting down healthy beautiful trees for no good reason.

Truth Bomb #2: Why I don't trust City Hall and the Statesman Journal

A few days ago I Truth Bombed about how our community newspaper, the Statesman Journal is failing us. This is part of my new blogging passion, "Salem, open your eyes."

It's tough to clearly see what's going on in Salem when your local paper won't report news that puts City officials or Chamber of Commerce types who are our town's "1%" in a bad light.

It's also tough when important decisions at City Hall are made behind closed doors to hide special interest dealmaking that overrides the general public interest.

At the end of my first Truth Bomb I shared a guest opinion piece that I'd submitted to the Statesman Journal after the newspaper killed an already-written story about my report on the outrageous killing of the beautiful U.S. Bank trees that I'd appropriately titled "Outrage." 

(To read a PDF file of the report, click here.)

Well, not only did the Statesman Journal kill a story about how Public Works Director Peter Fernandez and U.S. Bank president Ryan Allbritton (incoming Chamber of Commerce president in 2013, when he asked for the healthy trees to be removed) made a backroom deal to kill the trees, the newspaper also refused to publish my guest opinion piece about why no story.

That unpublished guest opinion about how I've lost trust with City Hall and the Statesman Journal was shared in a continuation to my lengthy Truth Bomb #1 post. So here it is, more prominently displayed.

If you read the Statesman Journal, keep in mind that by no means does it adhere to the adage "all the news that is fit to print." Our local newspaper only runs stories that are acceptable to the Salem powers-that-be, which include the Gannett Corporation executives who run the Statesman Journal.

Likewise, when you hear about what is going on at the City of Salem -- city council meetings, commission/committee hearings, and such -- keep in mind that much or most of the decisions actually are being made behind closed doors so citizens can't see all the special interest crap being thrown around.

Here's my piece that the Statesman Journal didn't want you to read.

Unpublished Guest Opinion

I’ve lost trust in City Hall and the Statesman Journal. After living in the Salem area for thirty-seven years, this disturbs me. I used to believe that City of Salem officials were committed to serving the broad public interest, not special interests, and our community newspaper had the same goal.

Not any more.

In May I released a report on the notorious 2013 U.S. Bank tree removals, where five marvelous Japanese Zelkovas in the Historic District were cut down. The report is based on public records documents I requested, including emails that previously had been hidden from view. 

The title and subtitle tell the tale of what I found: “Outrage: Salem’s U.S. Bank Tree Killings. The true story of how City officials and the bank president cut down five large, healthy, beautiful downtown trees for no good reason, and misled citizens about why they did it.”

(The 18-page report can be found at www.usbankkillstrees.com, or via a Google search.)

I discuss ten reasons why anyone who cares about trees, the environment, and ethical government should be outraged about how the Zelkovas came to be turned into stumps.

The biggest outrage is that back room dealmaking between Public Works Director Peter Fernandez and U.S. Bank President Ryan Allbritton led to the tree killings, even though facts, expert arborist advice, public testimony, and the law all demanded the trees be saved. 

In other words, City officials bowed to a special interest rather than fulfilling their duty to serve the general public. Is this still happening? Sure seems so. 

Howard Hall is one example. Once again, a citizen committee (this time, the Historic Landmarks Commission) voted to preserve a cherished part of Salem. Once again, City officials sided with a large corporation (this time, Salem Hospital) in overturning that vote.

So my report is about a lot more than the U.S. Bank trees debacle. It provides a window into how the Mayor, City Manager, and others at City Hall generally are handling important policy decisions. In short, in an untrustworthy fashion.

Here’s why I also no longer trust the Statesman Journal. An investigative reporter was intensely interested in my “Outrage” report. A story was written. In early May I was told  the story would run on an upcoming Sunday. May became June.

Now it is August. No story. Just a question: “Why no story?” 

Well, the reporter’s editors have squashed it. Just as no one at the City of Salem or U.S. Bank could come up with a good reason why the Zelkovas needed to be cut down, I haven’t gotten a good reason why readers of the Statesman Journal have been kept in the dark about the outrageous actions of City officials.

I want to feel like I can trust City Hall and the Statesman Journal to do the right thing for Salem. I hope this feeling returns. For now, though, my trust is as dead as the U.S. Bank trees.

————————————
Brian Hines 

Am I the best investigative reporter in Salem?

Just got a nice compliment from James M. Schultz, who left this Facebook comment about my blog post Truth Bomb: "The Statesman Journal newspaper is failing Salem."

A number of years back, I decided never to buy another StatesmanJournal newspaper as long as Dick Hughes was there. I have my reasons, and many of them parallel Mr. Hines' reasons here; I just tend to view him as arrogant and self-righteous.

As for the SJ's investigative reporters, I don't know if they just aren't up to the job or if they are good reporters whose work the editors quash -- whether to please their corporate masters, or their Chamber of Commerce overlords, or whatever. I tend to believe the latter -- those in charge keep them under control in order to avoid offending their corporate bosses, the C of C, or the City Council (which, after all, is pretty much hand-picked by the C of C.)

But regardless, solely on the basis of what we get to see in print, I think Mr. Hines is the best investigative reporter currently writing in Salem. Keep it up; as you said, the SJ has definitely failed us and continues to do so.

Well, thanks James. You might be right, but for reasons that don't make me as proud as I would be if the Investigative Reporter Competition in this town was fairly run.

Like Mr. Schultz said, methinks, along with him, that Statesman Journal reporters are leashed quite tightly by newpaper executives when they start to tread into territory Where The Wild Truth Lies.

Namely, how the Salem-Area Chamber of Commerce does its best to run this town with the willing (money talks!) compliance of the City Council and city officials. 

Isn't it interesting how the Statesman Journal will investigate, to offer one example, the Willamette ESD obsessively, yet ignores malfeasance at City Hall -- even when an investigative report is handed to them on a journalistic platter?

James, I'm sure you'll be interested in my upcoming Truth Bomb about the journalistic ethical missteps of editorial page editor Dick Hughes. I'll share some previously unshared information about complaints I filed against him with the Gannett Corporation, and how this turned out.

Truth Bomb #1: The Statesman Journal newspaper is failing Salem

Boom! Here's the first Truth Bomb in my who-knows-how-many-parts series, described in "Salem, open your eyes." 

I'm out to say some things I haven't said before about what needs to change in the city I've lived in or near for 37 years. And to resay more bluntly what has been blogged about previously. First up...

The Statesman Journal is failing Salem. It has stopped being a reputable community newspaper. I've lost trust in the paper's executives. News is censored for "political" (using that term broadly) reasons.

I have first hand experience of this. Here's the story of how there came to be no story in the Statesman Journal, even though an important story was written and needed to be published.

Some background:

The Statesman Journal is part of the Gannett media empire. For many years Salem hasn't had a locally controlled newspaper. Top executives at the Statesman Journal, such as the publisher and executive editor, are put in place by Gannett central.

In 2013 Michael Davis was brought to town. As the new executive editor, he said the right things. I was hopeful Davis was also going to do them.

I just pulled out a folder where I'd put two clippings of opinion pieces written by Davis in June and August of last year. Here's what he promised -- but has failed to provide. In "A focus on watch-dog reporting," executive editor Davis said:

Watchdog reporting is Gannett's top priority for its newsrooms across the continent, and ours is no exception. Our continuing mission is to hold individuals, businesses, agencies and institutions accountable for their action or inaction.

The Founders believed that a vigorous free press would expose wrongdoing or malfeasance by individuals, charities, public officials, public agencies, institutions that serve the public, or by those who do businesses [sic] with the government or public.

At a time when some media companies are backing away from investigative journalism, Gannett is betting its newspaper future on it, offering training, tools and cash awards to reporters who excel at getting to the bottom of things and exposing what's there.

Well, to paraphrase a news organization I rarely quote, I'll report, you decide -- if those Michael Davis platitudes are anything other than empty words.

In May of this year I released my tell-all report about the outrageous removal of five magnificent trees in Salem's Historic District.

Entirely appropriately, I called it "Outrage: Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings. The true story of how City officials and the bank president cut down five large, healthy, beautiful downtown trees for no good reason, and misled citizens about why they did it."

In the above-linked blog post (where the report can be downloaded), I said:

This is a case study of how city government shouldn't work. 

Here the Public Works Director, Peter Fernandez, ignored the law, facts, expert advice, advisory committee recommendations, and lots of public testimony so he could keep a back-room verbal promise to the U.S. Bank president, Ryan Allbritton, to cut the five large, healthy, beautiful trees down. 

The extra-legal promise itself is bad enough. Worse, Fernandez made that promise two years before the bank started the required process of filing an application to remove the trees. 

Even so, Public Works Director Fernandez was all set to order that the trees be pruned, rather than removed, until bank president Allbritton reminded him of that "just between us" deal they'd made together. It didn't matter that Albritton was unable to give a single coherent reason why the trees needed to be killed.

After Fernandez spoke with the bank president, everything changed. 

Allbritton got an unusual second chance to argue his extremely flimsy tree-killing case. He lobbied city councilors, who weren't bothered by Allbritton's mention of the verbal promise.

Maybe because this is the way the City of Salem habitually does things under its current leadership -- working out deals with special interests behind the scenes, then going through a show of holding public hearings and issuing a formal decision.

Sure sounds like the sort of "wrongdoing or malfeasance" by public officials the Statesman Journal executive editor said the newspaper would vigorously dig into, right?

My report wasn't only about the untold story of how the U.S. Bank trees came to be cut down based on $726.61 worth of heretofore unreleased public records documents I paid to get from the City of Salem. It also provided a window into how big decisions are being made these days at City Hall: behind closed doors, kowtowing to special interests, ignoring facts and the law.

On May 2, 2014 I emailed Statesman Journal investigative and environmental reporter Tracy Loew. She, I want to emphasize, was a delight to work with. By and large I have no problem with the newspaper's worker bees.

It's the Queens of the journalistic hive, the editors and executives, who are failing Salem. After contacting Loew it didn't take long for me to realize this.

Initially, though, I was encouraged.

I've had lots of interactions with reporters over the years. My biggest coup was getting a top journalist at the Wall Street Journal to come out and do a story on Oregon Health Decisions when I was the publicist (and later executive director) of this bioethics organization.

Loew related to me just as I'd come to expect a competent journalist to act: honestly and forthrightly. I had news for her, investigative reporting news. Even better, I'd already done the investigating.

I'd pored through many pages of public records documents (including emails) and distilled them into ten fact-based conclusions in my report which didn't make City officials such as Public Works Director Peter Fernandez or the U.S. Bank president, Ryan Allbritton, look good. 

I got a reply from Loew when I told her about the soon-to-be-released report: "Brian, I'll be really interested to see it!" Then, after she had read "Outrage," Loew asked, "Would you be willing to share the documents you received in response to your records requests?"

Of course I would. I took the big stack down to the Statesman Journal offices.

Loew and I spent a pleasant hour or so thumbing through the documents. I pointed out the "good stuff," the most egregious examples of how the public interest took a back seat to closed-door special-interest dealmaking, which eventually led to the five marvelous U.S. Bank trees being cut down for no good reason.

Reporter Loew copied quite a few documents. She then asked me some follow-up questions, which caused me to give her some additional information. We did all this on Monday, May 5. 

On that day Loew gave me a heads-up about the story she was working on. This is common, if not typical, in my considerable experience working with reporters. Again, good journalism is a partnership. I had news; the Statesman Journal is in the business of reporting news. 

I wrote the "Outrage" report on my own. Loew was writing a story about the report on her own. I didn't expect to know what was going to be in the story until it was published. But I appreciated being told when it was going to run.

Brian, this is going to run on Sunday so it will get better play.

Excellent, I thought. Over the next few days Loew asked more questions, and got some additional information from me. Then Saturday came. I heard from Loew that the story would be on hold for a week. Curious, I asked her why.

With the May primary election coming up, I threw out to Loew a conspiracy theory hypothesis that her editors didn't want criticism of City Hall close to the election. But I was told:

Brian, the truth is it's being delayed because we are so short staffed that I have to work Sunday, so had to take Friday off and didn't get the story done (wrote six other stories last week). And, because they want me to have enough time to make it a really good story. 

Again I thought, excellent. Better to do the story right than to do it quick. 

Eight days later, though, still no story. When I checked in with Loew, she told me she was on vacation, so probably the publication date would be June 1. OK, that was another Sunday. I put "SJ story?" on that day in my Mac's Calendar.

However, on Sunday June 1 I went to our paper box and found... no story. This is when reality knocked on my head and said, "You realize what is happening, don't you?" That day I emailed Loew:

Tracy, I really appreciate your interest in my US Bank tree report. I have good feelings toward you and all of the other Statesman Journal reporters. You’re doing a good job under rather tough situations. In my view, overworked and underpaid.

I just need to know: There isn’t going to be a story about my “Outrage” report, is there? That’s my only question for you. I’ll share my other questions and comments with the Statesman Journal executives/editors.

This started off a series of communications with executive editor Michael Davis. After emailing him on June 1, he wrote back to me and said:

The story is NOT dead, Brian. At my instruction, Tracy is spending more time with it, not less. I understand you believe there is a certain urgency to this, but in my view there is nothing to compel us to rush. It's not breaking news. Rather, it's a glimpse into the way power is exerted in Salem. Your neck is not on the line for what is reported in the Statesman Journal. Mine is, as is Tracy's. 

 

I'm going to be visiting my children this week along the Atlantic Coast. When I return, I'll be available to meet with you. 

Naturally I was encouraged by this.

Ah, Loew would be spending more time with the story, not less. Davis recognized that the real story is about how power is exerted in Salem. I was back to feeling good about the Statesman Journal's commitment to investigative reporting.

On June 12 of this year, Davis and I met at the IKE Box coffeehouse close to the Statesman Journal offices. We had a pleasant conversation.

But it bothered me when Davis told me that he wanted the U.S. Bank trees story to be more of a human interest piece. Well, a tree interest piece, really, since he thought it could be told from the perspective of the trees. That didn't sound like investigative reporting to me. 

Executive editor Davis also asked me only one question about the report, whether I thought Public Works Director Peter Fernandez did anything illegal. I replied, "Probably not, given Oregon law. But unethical, yes." 

I recall that Davis said a story should be published in the next few weeks. Again, I was encouraged. Until June came and went. Then July came and went. Nothing. Loew's story had been crushed, stomped on, suppressed. 

I then figured that if the Statesman Journal was going to squash a story about "the way power is exerted in Salem" -- the executive editor's words -- the newspaper should at least publish an opinion piece from me about why no story. 

I've attached the 500 word opinion piece as a continuation to this post. Here's a PDF file. 
Download SJ guest opinion 7-31-14 PDF

Guess what? (I bet you can.)

I never got a response from Davis or editorial page editor Dick Hughes about the opinion piece either. So not only did the Statesman Journal trash a story that had been written about my "Outrage" report, the paper refused to tell the story about why there is no story. 

Geez, what's a citizen activist to do when his community newspaper refuses to act in the community's interest? 

Use his own blog to tell the truths that the Salem Statesman Journal doesn't want citizens to know about. Of course, many fewer people read my blog than read the Statesman Journal. And of those, even fewer are going to read all 3,200 words or so of this post.

Which suits the Gannett-appointed executives at the Statesman Journal just fine. Along with officials at City Hall and the Salem Chamber of Commerce -- the other two legs of the triumvirate that does its best to control how this town is run, and who learns about how that control is exerted.

It's really disturbing, how the Statesman Journal is shirking its journalistic responsibiities. Again, I don't blame the reporters. I blame the publisher, executive editor, editorial page editor, and other higher-up folks at the paper.

Democracy doesn't work when people are kept in the dark about what is going on.

Be sure about this: just as Salemians won't read in the Statesman Journal about my tell-all U.S. Bank trees report, they also aren't learning about a lot of other unethical stuff going on at City Hall.

The Statesman Journal does do some investigative reporting.

But not any that would offend its major advertisers or local politicians who support the powers-that-be in this town. (U.S. Bank president Allbritton, who wanted the trees cut down for no good reason, was the incoming Chamber of Commerce president in 2013; no wonder the Statesman Journal killed a story critical of him killing those trees).

Today is when I believe a new out-of-town publisher, Terry Horne, starts what likely will be a brief stay at the Statesman Journal. I noticed a tweet by a SJ staffer.

Recipe for success from new SJ Publisher Terry Horne: Care about each other. Care about the community. Care about great journalism. #SJNow

That made me want to barf. 

On August 28 I emailed Michael Davis again, telling him that I'd be writing about the story of no story, and asking him to give me reasons for the killing of Tracy Loew's piece. If he did, I'd include his reasons with the story of no story.

Michael, after Labor Day I’m going to be engaging in another phase of my effort to (1) reveal the general truth about what is happening with backroom deal-making and decision-making by our so-called “public servants” at the Salem City Hall, and (2) what is happening specifically with the unnecessary removal of street trees. 

Since this saga of (1) and (2) now includes the story of (3), how the Statesman Journal decided that (1) and (2) aren’t subjects the newspaper wants to inform readers about, among other things I’ll be describing how the paper refused to run a story about my “Outrage” report, then chose not to publish a guest opinion I wrote about the report and the refusal to run a story.

 

If you’d like to send me your comments or take on (3) — the Statesman Journal’s side of all this — I’d be pleased to include your statement in my writings. Meaning, I want to give you an opportunity to explain why the Statesman Journal didn’t consider the findings of my report to merit a story, and why my guest opinion regarding the “story of no story” wasn’t considered to be a proper piece for the editorial pages.

 

If I don’t hear from you by September 8, I’ll assume that “no comment” is the Statesman Journal response, and proceed accordingly.

 

Please understand: I like you personally. I, along with many others, had high hopes that when you came to town the Statesman Journal would get back to being an independent journalistic watchdog of local politics and goings-on at City Hall. It’s disappointing this hasn’t happened, but I realize you don’t have sole control of what happens at the Statesman Journal.

 

Regardless, as a long-time subscriber and resident of the Salem area, I consider it my duty to speak up about issues that deeply concern me. I don’t like what is going on at City Hall these days, and I don’t like the failure of the Statesman Journal to properly inform citizens about this. 

 

Davis didn't respond. I guess that is fitting.

 

I wrote a report about how City officials and the U.S. Bank president cut down five downtown trees for no good reason. Then the Statesman Journal refused to publish a story that a reporter had written about the report. When I asked "Why?" I got no response, no good reason. 

 

This is Salem's dysfunctional vicious circle: crap goes on at City Hall, and citizens are given no good reasons for it. Then the not-really "paper of record," the Statesman Journal, refuses to tell its readers what is going on in town, again giving no good reasons for its news censoring. 

 

I'm glad social media, Salem Weekly, and blogs exist. Otherwise there would be no way out of the Information Control Trap.

My unpublished opinion piece submitted to the Statesman Journal can be found below.

"Salem, open your eyes." My new blogging passion.

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

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

My only regret is that I've held back some weaponry for one reason or another. Laziness. Lack of time. Misplaced hope that "playing nice" will lead the other side to reciprocate. 

No more. At least, that's my goal. I'm tired of holding my tongue on some subjects that need blabbing about.

Through the marvelous School of Aging, geezers like me -- I'll be 66 next month -- learn the lesson that tomorrow usually comes, but one day it won't. For all of us. 

So this is the day to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. If there is a tomorrow, it then becomes this day.

A newfound passion deserves a name.

I'm calling it Salem, open your eyes. I just added it as a blog post category. Time will tell how many posts find a home there. It depends on how much eye-opening I feel needs to be done.

First I'm going to write about two important parts of Salem I've lost trust in: City officials and executives at the Statesman Journal newspaper. This pains me, because I've lived in and around Salem for 37 years. Until recently I never doubted that I could trust City Hall and our local newspaper.

No more. Over the next weeks (maybe months) I'll be explaining why.

Understand: I'm just a blogger who, at the moment, is sitting at his kitchen counter in shorts and a t-shirt, listening to crickets doing their thing on a warm early fall night, trying to find words to explain to unseen readers why he wants to open Salem eyes.

Notably and primarily, his own. 

I don't claim any special vision into what ails this town. All I can do is share how I see things, based on my own experience. Having been an avid writer for almost all of my life, I've come to realize that the first goal of writing isn't to change other people's minds. 

It is to change mine.

I feel best when there is little difference between who I am inside, and how I appear outside. When the two "me's," internal and external, get markedly out of sync, I feel like I need a truth alignment. Sure, it isn't possible or practical to always express myself 100% honestly.

But I've been saying things to myself and others that are more blunt and well, "bomb'y," than have been shared publicly. In short, I'm more pissed at City Hall and the Statesman Journal than I've been letting on. It's time to get the inner and outer anger in adjustment.

I'll end this introductory Salem, open your eyes post with a story from my hard style martial arts days (I've been into softer Tai Chi for the past ten years). 

When several fellow students and I were anxiously training for an upcoming black belt exam, our instructor interrupted a class by saying, "I'm going to show you a kata you probably haven't seen before." He then performed the sequence of moves in what appeared to me a damn fine manner.

Then he said, "I haven't done that kata in many years. Do you know how I was able to perform it so well? Because I don't care!" 

Those words really hit me.

He didn't care, because he already had proven himself in martial arts. Us students, on the other hand, were holding ourselves back from being as good as we could be. We were tight, overly anxious to do the right thing. We worried about being judged. 

We cared. 

Which naturally is fine, up to a point. But we all know that letting loose, going with the flow, dancing like no one is watching even when they are -- that way leads to joyful spontaneous honest play. 

Such is how I feel about Salem, open your eyes.

I really don't care a whole lot if people don't like what I'm going to say. I really don't care much if what I write leaves people uninterested, unimpressed, or unchanged. I'm unpaid and unemployed (being retired). I'm not out to win awards, get a promotion, or pad my resume.

I just want to throw some truth-bombs.