Salem Political Snark

Great idea to deal with Salem's homeless problem

A few days ago Susannn Kaltwasser asked an excellent question on a Facebook page where Salem City Council issues are discussed. 

Kaltwasser is correct. An October 2019 survey of Salem residents found that after being asked an open-ended question, 41% said that homelessness and poverty were their top concerns. Crime and drugs were mentioned by only 4%. Here's a screenshot from the survey report,

So it's perplexing that City officials want all of a proposed employee-paid payroll tax that will be on the May 2020 ballot to go to public safety. Here's a information sheet about the payroll tax and operations fee (already passed by the City Council). 
Download City Revenue Fact Sheet

Judging by the citizen survey, putting that estimated $9.1 million a year into efforts to reduce the number of homeless people in Salem is a much higher priority than adding to the police and fire departments budget.

Thus Jim Scheppke had a great idea in a comment he left in response to Kaltwasser's question. (The payroll tax also is being called the "Commuter Tax," since it would raise money from the estimated 60,000 people who work in Salem but live elsewhere. It also would be paid by people who live and work in Salem, naturally.)

This idea should be seriously considered by the City Council.

I'm not sure when the deadline is for filing measures to appear on the May 19, 2020 primary ballot, but likely there is time to amend the measure that currently calls for all of the payroll tax money to be dedicated to public safety.

If you agree that helping the homeless is a better use for $9.1 million a year raised by the employee-paid payroll tax than adding police officers and fire department personnel that don't appear to be urgently needed, send an email to the Salem City Council telling them this: [email protected]

Homelessness is a lot like climate change. Local action isn't nearly enough.

Watching how city staff and the City Council are trying to deal with Salem's homeless problem reminds me of a 60 Minutes story I saw recently about Venice's flooding problem.

The periodic floods of Venice have become more threatening and more frequent. This past November, a sudden storm surge overwhelmed nearly 90% of the city. Climate scientists say what happened that night exactly two months ago in Venice is a warning to the world of what's to come – and not just in Venice.

Climate change is raising sea levels. Venice is being inundated with water to a greater extent than ever before. Giant gates that can be closed to keep the ocean out of Venice are under construction, but they were only designed to be used sparingly. Now, they'd have to be used often, because of the effect of climate change, which they weren't engineered to do.

The 60 Minutes piece showed people in Venice dealing with the flooding with pumps, buckets, raised walkways. All they can do is try to lessen the impact of the rising waters, not deal with the core problem: rapidly rising levels of greenhouse gases all over our planet.

Likewise, people in Salem are trying to deal with our city's homeless problem the best they can. Most recently, according to stories in the Salem Reporter, the City Council is considering allowing car camping in designated places and turning the city-owned Pringle Hall into a homeless shelter.

Yet these actions, as necessary as they are, are akin to pumping out water from a flooded Venice building, which has zero effect on global carbon dioxide levels. They do nothing to deal with the root causes of people living on the streets. 

Some residents of Venice have decided to move from their beautiful city, which I was able to spend a few days in back in 1968. But it really isn't possible to turn our backs on the homeless crisis, unless we're willing to turn our backs on fellow human beings who need our help.

Yesterday I walked along downtown's Court Street around 6 pm after my Tai Chi class was over. For the first time in a long time I didn't see any homeless people. Probably they had moved to the covered areas around the Nordstrom Mall and Rite-Aid, following a ban on homeless camps.

I have to be honest. It was more pleasant to not see homeless people and their belongings. That part of downtown seemed like it had returned to normal, at least for that one night.

But as I sipped a latte at Starbucks, I knew that Salem's homeless were still out there, having to cope with cold nights, physical and mental problems, the anxiety of not knowing when they'd be asked to move on by building security or police officers. It was as if I'd chanced upon a dry St. Mark's Square in Venice which, soon enough, would be flooded again.

Just as with climate change, dealing with homelessness requires action both locally and globally. A lack of affordable housing and extreme income inequality seem to be the main causes of homelessness, just as rising carbon dioxide levels are the prime cause of global warming.

So we can't expect much progress to be made on Salem's homeless problem until things change at the state and, especially, national level. Keep this in mind when you vote in the May primary election and November general election. 

It's an undeniable fact that Republicans in Oregon and elsewhere don't support actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions anywhere near to the extent that Democrats do. Republicans also aren't nearly as committed as Democrats are to increasing the supply of affordable housing and reducing income inequality.

Thus if you claim to care about helping the homeless, and think that all people in Salem need to do is open more shelter beds and give homeless people a safer place to sleep outside, think again.

If you aren't voting for Democrats or progressive independents in local, state, and national elections, you're acting like someone who believes that dumping water out of a flooded Venice building is saving that city from rising sea levels. Yes, dealing with the effects of global warming is necessary, just as dealing with the effects of a lack of affordable housing and income inequality is.

But until citizens in this country elect politicians who are willing and ready to address the root causes of homelessness, Salem and all other cities in the United States will be trying to deal with a rising tide that can't be stopped without drastic action.

Which hopefully, will come to pass after the 2020 election gives us a Democratic president and Congress.

Salem City Club discusses employee-paid payroll tax

Nobody likes paying taxes. (Well, almost nobody.) But everybody likes the services taxes provide. (Well, almost everybody.) That's the perpetual dilemma facing government at all levels, federal, state, local.

Robert (Bob) Barron

Today's Salem City Club program on the City of Salem's financial situation featured Bob Barron, who became the city's Chief Financial Officer last June -- a new position created by a reorganization at City Hall that did away with the assistant City Manager, leaving the CFO in charge of financial goings-on.

Barron has an impressive background, as evidenced by his bio above. He came across as a straight-shooter who will tell it like it is, budget-wise, which is exactly what the City of Salem needs from its Chief Financial Officer, because in some other regards city officials have been prone to shade the truth on policy matters.

And Barron gets bonus points for looking the part of a CFO. Plus he and his family have a Goldendoodle, which has to be one of the coolest breed names I've ever seen. (My wife and I have a Husky mix... boring name, by comparison.)

Don't subtract points for Barron living in Keizer. After his talk he told me that was necessary because they haven't sold their home in Connecticut yet, and they couldn't find a suitable place to live in Salem that accepted dogs.

Barron had an interesting observation about his ten years-plus working for FedEx. He said that at FedEx 10% of time was spent getting data, and 90% was spent analyzing the data. But his experience in the public sector was the reverse: 90% of time goes to obtaining information, leaving just 10% to make sense of it.

(He did add that the situation with the public sector is improving somewhat.)

Early on in his talk Barron noted a big difference between Connecticut and Oregon. Oregon limits annual property tax increases, while Connecticut doesn't. So in his previous jobs with Connecticut city governments, a gap between projected revenues and expenses could be met simply: raise the property tax rate.

Here in Salem, though, property taxes can only go up 3% a year, which often isn't enough to meet the demand for services. Which led to the slide below that shows the financial problems facing the City of Salem.

You can see in the top box, if you're able to read small print, that the City of Salem faces a $10.9 million operating deficit in FY 2020.  That's the difference between general fund revenues and expenses. It's reasonable to ask how the city got into this mess, but that's another subject, and it wasn't raised at today's City Club meeting.

The middle box contains a bit of good news. A couple of accounting items -- Unspent Contingency and Personnel Vacancies -- are estimated to bring the $10.9 million deficit down to a "mere" $5.8 million. 

Then, in the right of the bottom box, some magic happens, and the decrease in what amounts to reserve funds drops to just $2.3 million. From my scribbled notes, I'm pretty sure this is the result of the Operations Fee passed by the City Council last year. (See above.)

The fee won't be in effect for the full fiscal year, and a Statesman Journal story said that it would raise roughly $7.1 million in the first year. Since half of $7.1 million is about $3.5 million, and $5.8 million minus $3.5 million is $2.3 million, this shows that, almost certainly, the Operations Fee is the reason the FY 2020 deficit drops to $2.3 million.

An employee-paid payroll tax is the other way city officials hope to deal with the general fund deficit.

The City Council decided to refer this to voters in the May 2020 election. I suspect it will be a close call as to whether the payroll tax is approved. When the election grows closer I'll write more about the pros and cons of the payroll tax.

One fact that is either a pro or a con, depending on a person's perspective, is that an estimated 60,000 people who work in Salem and live somewhere else would pay the tax. But they won't be able to vote on the tax. So we can expect to hear a lot of talk about "no taxation without representation" from aggrieved commuters to Salem.

Bob Barron said that the tax is fair, because those 60,000 people use city services. However, the payroll tax, which is expected to raise about $9.1 million a year, would be dedicated to public safety: police, fire, compliance (not sure what that means), and traffic safety.

The flip side of that supposed fairness, of course, is that thousands of other people live in Salem, but work elsewhere. So even though they use city services, they wouldn't be subject to the payroll tax.

Councilor Tom Andersen spoke briefly after Barron's presentation. He defended the employee-paid payroll tax, though he said that he would have preferred that the City Council had approved it directly, rather than referring it to voters. 

Andersen said that from what he's heard so far, the argument against the payroll tax will be along the lines of... Government always wants more money and they do a bad job of spending what we give them; the new police facility has had massive construction cost overruns, so why should we throw more money at the City of Salem; and so on. (Can't remember a few other reasons Andersen gave).

I got to ask a question during the Q&A period. It went like this:

"The payroll tax is dedicated to public safety. Police and fire make up most of the general fund budget. Crime rates are going down. There are fewer fires now. So are you two confident that inefficiencies have been wrung out of the police and fire budgets, since likely there will be a spotlight on this issue in the run-up to the May vote on the payroll tax?"

Not surprisingly, the responses from Barron and Andersen were general and non-specific. I recall that Councilor Andersen related that the police chief had talked about burn-out among his officers, saying that it was difficult to find someone willing to put in overtime when this was needed.

There's going to be a City Club debate on the payroll tax in April, the month before the election, so I'm confident this and other issues related to the public safety budget will be discussed at that time. 

Not supporting Salem's Arta Potties was a dumb move by city officials

Back in 2015, providing artistically decorated Arta Potties (portable toilets) in downtown Salem was a brilliant idea of Rebecca Maitland Courtney and other women who wanted to give homeless people a place to go, rather than defecating and urinating in public places.

First Arta Potty (photo courtesy of the Arta Potties Facebook page)

But the folks at City Hall, including the Mayor and City Manager, never supported Arta Potties in any meaningful way, apparently figuring that putting them downtown would encourage the homeless to congregate in central Salem.

Well, guess what?

Five years later, there are more homeless people sleeping downtown than ever, and now City officials are having to clean the sidewalks in front of the Nordstrom mall and other locations because of human waste. Here's how the Salem Reporter story starts out.

The city of Salem plans to close and clean parts of downtown on Thursday and Friday where homeless residents have slept since a citywide camping ban started last month.

Cleanups will occur Thursday along Center Street, the city of Salem said in a press release Wednesday afternoon. On Friday, crews will clean parts of Liberty Street.

According to the city, people have complained it's hard to pass along the sidewalk and that the area has become unsanitary. Kristin Retherford, urban development director, said fecal matter, urine and syringes have all been found in the area.

In 2017 I sat down with Courtney and learned about her frustrations with how the City of Salem treated Arta Potties. I wrote about our conversation in "Arta Potties SOS! Why isn't Salem embracing public portable restrooms?"

Rebecca Maitland Courtney is frustrated with her home town. She has a right to be.

After coming up with the idea for Arta Potties, artistically-decorated portable toilets that serve both the homeless and ordinary people, she's finding that other cities are giving her a lot more love than Salem. 

I just spent an enjoyable hour talking with Courtney.

She's a caring, creative woman who can't understand why it is so difficult for people in Salem to come together and embrace a great idea: making restrooms a right for all in downtown, rather than a privilege for those who have the money needed to "buy" a place to urinate or defecate by frequenting a business with restrooms.

She told me, "People just don't want to look at homelessness. And they think that Arta Potties attract the homeless." Yet, she added, "They are already here."

Courtney's disappointing experience with placing Arta Potties in Salem echoes the Biblical adage, "No prophet is acceptable in her hometown." 

Last night Oregon City had a wonderful celebration to mark the placing of two Arta Potties after the city's Police Department reached out to Courtney and asked her to help them figure out where to put the portable restrooms and what art to place on them. 

Thus Salem had a chance to do something creative, artistic, and compassionate to help homeless people, then rejected Arta Potties, and now is trying to figure out how to clean up the urine and feces that wouldn't be on downtown sidewalks if portable toilets had been embraced by city officials years ago.

Here's part of what Rebecca Maitland Courtney shared with me today.

One Arta Potty remains in Salem at the Congregational Church. So many rumors..politics etc... I just wanted the world to know that they worked successfully in Salem for 3 years. It wasn't a bust. It worked! There was too little, too late from the city. I continue to consult [with] other cities.

Tim King, among others, has been reminding us of this City Hall screw-up via Facebook posts. King was an early advocate for Arta Potties and made a documentary that I'll share below, along with other videos about the Arta Potties project. Here's a screenshot of what King said.

This is a December 2015 KOIN News story about Arta Potties.

This is a song in praise of Arta Potties by a homeless man.

And this is Tim King's documentary about Arta Potties.

Iran, if you're listening...

Even though I can be prone to magical thinking at times, I haven't gone down that rabbit hole deep enough to really believe that if I'd written a blog post with the above title a day or two ago, Iran wouldn't have fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq today.

But since I spent some time this afternoon prior to the attack thinking about what I wanted to say in an Iran, if you're listening... post, I might as well start off by summarizing my advice to Iran -- some of which still makes sense even after the missile attack.

Dear Iran,

I realize you're deeply pissed off at President Trump. Which puts you in the company of a heck of a lot of Americans, including me. It makes sense that Trump's order to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani fills you with rage. 

But that's what Trump does all the time. Talk crazy and act crazy. He loves to get reactions from both people and nations. So I'm hoping you'll avoid the temptation to respond to Suleimani's death with your own killings. You can't win a Crazy War with Trump. 

So think clearly and strategically. 

My advice to you, Iran, is to focus on something that is attainable, doesn't require bloodshed, and is guaranteed to make Trump exceedingly angry. Best of all, perhaps, it would meet with the approval of most Americans. It is:

Help orchestrate the complete withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq. This is a dream of yours. Go for it.

The Iraqi parliament already has called for the withdrawal of American forces. The acting prime minister of Iraq wants this to happen. And the US Command in Baghdad sent the prime minister a letter indicating that the withdrawal was happening (though now the letter is being called a mistake, which is as believable as all the other lies the Trump administration engages in).

Getting the United States out of Iraq would be a big victory for Iran. Consider this as payback for Suleimani's killing. Thanks for listening, Iran. 

Well, the breaking news on CNN and MSNBC is that the ballistic missiles landed in an unoccupied part of the base, so apparently there were no casualties. And maybe even no damage, except to the desert.

It seems to me, as well as others I've been listening to, that this was intentional by Iran. Iran wanted to retaliate for Suleimani's killing in a way that didn't escalate the conflict between Iran and the United States into all-out war. 

Trump has responded in what is, for him, an unusually measured way. 

“All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq,” Trump tweeted. “Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning.”

Reports are that Iranian leaders have said that if the United States doesn't conduct further attacks against Iran, they will consider that this immediate conflict is over. Hopefully Trump will understand that the best thing is to deescalate this crisis, not inflame the situation by bombing Iranian targets.

This is what a wise president of the United States would do. Unfortunately, "wise" doesn't describe Donald Trump. So we'll just have to wait and see what Trump says in his statement tomorrow morning.

Since Trump has vowed to get our country out of foreign entanglements, and Iran hasn't done anything to justify an attack against them, Trump should realize that he's got nothing to gain and a lot to lose by dragging the United States into a war with Iran.

We might be able to destroy a lot of Iran's traditional military capability. However, almost certainly Iran still would be able to conduct massive cyberwarfare against our minimally prepared computer systems that control infrastructure, financial institutions, electrical grids, and such.

Thus there's lots of ways Iran could bring a war to our shores. Which wouldn't be great for Trump's re-election chances. This is a moment for wise minds to prevail. Which I'd be a lot more confident of if Donald Trump didn't occupy the Oval Office.

Bad P.R. for City of Salem: homeless and library debacles

The folks who run City Hall aren't doing very well in the public relations department recently.

KGW News has been doing a good job of holding city officials accountable for failing to live up to their promise to add shelter beds for the homeless following a citywide ban on homeless camps. Here's how a January 3 KGW story starts out.

SALEM, Ore. — More than two weeks after the city of Salem enacted a ban on public camping and two days after their self-imposed deadline, by which they promised to open 140 shelter beds, officials confirmed they’ve come up woefully short.

As of Friday, January 3, they’ve opened zero new beds.

Salem’s Community & Media Relations Specialist Kathy Ursprung wrote via email Friday, “In Salem, there are 330 shelter beds available nightly. When the temperature drops to 32 or below, our warming center network of churches has the ability to open another 256 beds, dependent upon volunteer availability.”

That was the case prior to the ban’s enactment.

Wow. Zero additional shelter beds, when 140 were promised, after two weeks of bureaucratic ineptitude. This sure doesn't make the City of Salem look either compassionate or competent. 

Then, in yesterday's Sunday Statesman Journal, there was a letter to the editor that properly criticized the atrocious decision by city staff and the City Council to temporarily house the Salem Public Library in a building owned by the Salem Alliance Church, which denies LGBTQ rights.

As an Episcopal Priest, I found Scott Rick's editorial fascinating and I totally agree with the writer's comments ("Salem taxpayer money shouldn't go to organization that denies basic human rights," Dec. 29, page 6C).

I cannot believe the Salem Library would enter into a financial arrangement with a church that bans so many accepted positions in today's society and Oregon law. A church that does not give full status and accommodation to women and members of the LGBTQ community should not be receiving a portion of taxpayer money.

Of all organizations, I am astounded that the Salem Public Library would censure adult and mature reading material under the "guise" of placing it in "storage."  This rental arrangement has made for "strange bedfellows" and my regret is that it violates the First Amendment to our U.S. Constitution.

I will not support the Salem Public Library until it is once again fully in step with the Constitution and state and national laws.

Rev. Fred Heard
Salem

Honor Mike Swaim by making Salem more progressive

Mike Swaim was a much-admired former mayor of Salem who died on December 17 from a stroke that occurred during heart surgery. 

Other people have praised Swaim for how he worked to improve Salem during his three mayoral terms in office from 1997 to 2002. Below I'm sharing a piece that Bill Smaldone wrote about Swaim that was posted on the Salem City Watch site. 

And both the Salem Reporter and Statesman Journal had stories about Swaim. So since I don't have anything to add about Swaim's exemplary life, I want to talk about how we can honor him in the future.

Since Mike Swaim was a proud progressive, working to make Salem more progressive than it already is strikes me as a fine way to say Thank you, Mike. We're taking your footsteps further in a direction that would please you.

Which means, in part:

(1) Protecting, and hopefully expanding, the 6-3 progressive majority on the Salem City Council.
(2) Preventing further urban sprawl that Swaim disliked so much.
(3) Reducing greenhouse gases in Salem through a strong Climate Action Plan.
(4) Expanding LGBTQ rights in Salem.
(5) Fighting against conservative efforts to prevent 1-4 above from happening.

Regarding that last point, it seems clear that the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, the Realtors Association, and other groups on the right wing of the political spectrum are going to go all out to regain control of the reins of power at City Hall, just as they did after Swaim was elected mayor and the City Council had a progressive majority.

Someone sent me a link to a May 2002 Oregonian story about how Janet Taylor, a conservative, had been elected mayor of Salem by beating Bill Isabell, who Swaim had endorsed.
Download TAYLOR_EASILY_WINS__Oregonian_The_Portland_OR___May_23_2002__pD02

Since I like people who tell it like it is, I loved this part of the story.

Swaim told a weekly Eugene publication that Salem has a Chamber of Commerce "with a lot of good people run by a bunch of Neanderthals."

OK, that comment led to demands that Swaim apologize, but I don't think he needed to.

What he meant, I'm pretty sure, was that leaders of the Salem Chamber of Commerce weren't interested in wise, forward-looking, cutting-edge policies that would move Salem forward toward increased equity, quality of life, and economic development that benefits everybody, not just a privileged few.

The same holds true today, by and large. That's why we need to remember that, as Progressive Salem likes to say, people power can beat money power. 

Which doesn't mean you shouldn't donate to progressive candidates and causes. Of course that's needed.

But so is volunteering to help elect people to the mayor's office and city council seats who are committed to following in the progressive footsteps of Mike Swaim, and doing your part in other ways to assure that Salem continues to move forward, not backward.

Here's what Bill Smaldone wrote in his Salem City Watch piece about Swaim.

With the passing of Mike Swaim on December 17 the people of Salem lost a true friend.

Many members of City Watch certainly remember well that few local political figures defended the interests of average people in Salem the way Mike did during his three terms as Mayor. For Mike every issue essentially boiled down to a few basic questions: who got to make the decisions, how were obligations and benefits shared, and how were individuals’ rights protected.

Mike was truly a democrat with a small d.

He believed it was essential to listen to people and for the government to serve all residents as fairly and equitably as possible. Listening takes time and that sometimes made for very long meetings, but Mike thought it was worth it and he was right. Mike led the fight for as much transparency as possible in city government.

He pushed for citizens’ right to vote on annexations, supported ordinances to provide as much information as possible to the public about growth and its costs, and insisted that those who profited from growth pay their fair share of its costs to the community.

For Mike, government was all about improving the quality of life for all, and he worked tenaciously to defend our parks, our library, and our neighborhood services while at the same time providing adequate resources to public safety.

Mike also knew that many in our community faced discrimination and exploitation. He emphasized the importance of the Human Rights Commission in defending the rights of all citizens. He recognized the importance of tolerance and communication in community life, and this was symbolized by his support for the Peace Plaza and for Salem’s sister city projects.

Mike was also much concerned with the environment.

Long before “climate change” became part of the daily discussion, he supported the creation of the City’s Environmental Commission, which later councils, unfortunately, lacked the foresight to continue. He also placed much emphasis on planning ahead and many projects initiated during Mike’s tenure, such as the Riverfront Park, the Convention Center, and the Pedestrian Bridge to Wallace Marine Park, are now core elements of our flourishing downtown.

The list of achievements could go on. What is perhaps more important, though, is to remember Mike as a person.

Mike and his spouse, Kellie, were a team. Not only did they raise a family together, but they also shared the work of the law practice. The decision to engage in city politics was a joint project that Kellie shared with Mike every step of the way and, just as the law practice depended on both of them, so did Mike’s stint as Mayor.

Being Mayor meant a lot of sacrifices. It is financially difficult for anyone with their own business and it demands enormous amounts of time and energy that one might otherwise spend with family and friends. Mike and Kellie dealt with it all with aplomb. They took the work in stride and were always ready for a good laugh and a beer.

Mike will be missed, but his model of civic engagement will remain.

-- Bill Smaldone

Angry Owl's Top 10 Predictions for Salem in 2020

Funny. Sarcastic. Provocative. In short, a hoot. Here's Angry Owl's Top 10 Predictions for Salem in 2020 that came to perch on the top of the Twitter tree today.

It's tough for me to pick a favorite, because I like them all, but I suppose my #1 of the Top Ten would be... "Botched construction at the polo grounds and clubhouse delay grand opening of Salem's $73 million police facility," because cost overruns were so extreme on this Police Palace.

Be sure to follow Angry Owl on Twitter so you don't miss this famous bird's tweets. And check out Angry Owl's 2019 predictions for Salem, which also had some sharp talons aimed at our city.

Why the City of Salem shouldn't give taxpayer money to a church that discriminates

In 2019 the most disturbing decision of the Salem City Council was to go along with a poorly thought-out plan by city officials to temporarily house the public library in a building owned by an organization that denies LGBTQ rights, the Salem Alliance Church. 

In case you missed out on reading my blog posts about this unethical travesty, type "Salem Alliance Church" in the Google search box in the right sidebar to find what I've written on this subject. For example...

Disturbing wrongness of last Monday's Salem City Council meeting
Salem's city officials say "screw you" to supporters of LGBTQ rights

Scott Rick, the librarian at South Salem High School, drew attention to how the Salem Alliance Church discriminates against gueer people in December 2018, when he wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the Statesman Journal. You can read it in my post, Two reports of how Broadway Coffee House/Commons discriminates against LGBT people. 

(The Salem Alliance Church runs the Broadway Commons and Broadway Coffee House.)

One year later, Rick has an excellent opinion piece published in the December 29, 2019 issue of the Statesman Journal, Salem taxpayer money shouldn't go to organization that denies basic human rights. Here's some excerpts from the piece.

When people suggest that President Trump’s statements and policies are racist or homophobic, he vehemently denies it in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The same thing happens when you ask Salem Alliance Church officials about their discriminatory policies toward the queer community.

Church leaders insist, for example, that their refusal to marry same-gender couples is not discriminatory. They seem to believe that by couching discrimination within religious freedom it can no longer be considered discrimination.

By this logic, the church would also be justified in refusing to marry a mixed-race couple.

...The Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination (to which Salem Alliance belongs) refers to homosexuality as “detestable” based on Leviticus. Church leaders at Salem Alliance preach against homosexuality and gay marriage.

By sending this message of intolerance into our community they are directly contributing to the self-harm that is so prevalent in the queer community. Queer people are made to feel that there is something wrong with them, that they are detestable and detested, resulting in suicide rates much higher than for the general population. Fortunately, Salem Alliance rejects some parts of Leviticus, such as 25:44-46 which endorses slavery.

...church leaders have repeatedly refused to answer the simple question “would the Broadway Commons hire an openly queer applicant?”

The Broadway Commons also refuses to issue an equal opportunity employer statement. They believe that religious freedom grants them the right to refuse to hire any applicant that does not conform to their standard of “appropriate” sexual orientation.

...Many community members do not feel comfortable using facilities owned by a church that spreads intolerance in our community. For this reason, public and private organizations are encouraged to refrain from renting and using facilities owned by the Salem Alliance Church.

Taxpayer money should not be flowing to an organization that so blatantly denies basic human rights to cherished members of our community. Celebrate diversity.

I'm a big admirer of libraries. But I agree with Rick that those who support LGBTQ rights shouldn't use the Salem Public Library when portions of the collection are moved to a building leased from the Salem Alliance Church, which will open on February 18. 

With so many suitable buildings available in Salem, there was no good reason to house a temporary library in the church-owned building. City officials simply thought that the controversy over paying an organization that discriminates against LGBTQ people would blow over.

Hopefully that won't happen. I won't set foot in any building owned by the Salem Alliance Church, because I support LGBTQ rights. Others, I'm confident, will feel the same way.

Warren was wrong about the Buttigieg wine cave event

Watching last Thursday's Democratic presidential debate, I was irritated by Elizabeth Warren's attack on Pete Buttigieg for having a fundraiser in a wine cave that featured a $900 bottle of wine.

It drives me crazy when Democrats expect absolute purity from their candidates, since Republicans, by contrast, tend to be pragmatists who do whatever it takes to win an election.

Buttigieg made this point after Warren attacked him, correctly pointing out that if Warren -- who is a millionaire herself -- donated $2,800 to his campaign, he certainly wouldn't be expected to do her bidding from that point on. He'd just be thankful for the contribution.

Further, today I was told a friend I had coffee with that the $900 bottle of wine is a fiction. Some Googling confirmed that what Warren said wasn't true.

First, there's an opinion piece in the Washington Post: "About Pete Buttigieg's wine cave dinner? I was there." Here's part of what an attendee said.

Of the roughly 50 folks in attendance, plenty were people of means, and certainly all of us who were able to go to an event like that should consider ourselves lucky. (For the record, I am neither a billionaire nor a millionaire. Oh, how I wish.)

But the whole experience fell well short of proving Warren’s suggestion that “billionaires in wine caves" will “pick the next president.” Nor is it an example of “corruption” — a word some Democratic candidates use far too casually to describe political and policy opponents in either their or the other party. Let’s save that term for folks who plainly belong in a jail cell and those who’ve taken up residence in one already.

Warren’s most damaging suggestion doesn’t really stand up if you check it out. She suggested in the debate that we were drinking $900 bottles of wine. Perhaps no one will care, but out of respect for pesky facts, allow me to report: That didn’t really happen, either. The wine, a 2016 cabernet, is the host couple’s signature bottle and it was very good. But it is available online for $185 per bottle — far more than I’ve ever paid in my life for a bottle of wine, but not unusual for wine collector enthusiasts. (I know a few; I wish I knew more.) Checking the price point isn’t hard to do.

Speaking of price, my bet is that you probably want to know: How much did it cost for me to go?

To attend the dinner, donors were asked to “max out” — to contribute the maximum allowed by law to a primary candidate. I made my first contribution to Mayor Pete back in May at a San Francisco fundraiser that was attended by close to 1,000 people. I’ve made additional contributions since, including buying a bumper sticker from his campaign shop. (It’s not every day in America that a gay man has a realistic chance of becoming president, so yes, my partner and I probably qualify as enthusiastic.) All of these contributions count toward the individual limit of $2,800.

So, exactly how much more did it cost to attend that infamous wine cave dinner? In my case, the answer is $11.

So where did the fictitious fable of a $900 bottle of wine come from? Here's part of a Slate story, "'Wine cave' attendee defends event as Warren says she learned from fundraising mistakes."

The owners of the “wine cave”—Craig and Kathryn Hall, who own the Hall Rutherford winery—also came to Buttigieg’s defense and say the fundraiser was misrepresented. “It seems someone’s intentionally trying to create a different image than the reality. And that’s unfortunate,” Craig Hall said. He also said that even though they do sell a bottle for around $900, it is extra large and equivalent to about four standard-size bottles. The winery’s most expensive wine costs around $350, and that’s not what they served at the fundraiser.

Thus the $900 bottle of wine wasn't served at the fundraiser, and even if it had been, the cost per normal bottle of wine would have been $225 -- since the $900 bottle is about as large as four usual bottles. That's a lot for a bottle of wine, but not a crazy amount (that said, I buy Trader Joe's $3.99 organic red wine, and it tastes fine to me).

I've donated to the Warren campaign, and still like her a lot. But this episode bothers me, since it shows that Ms. "I have a plan for that" is still prone to making factual mistakes that belie her reputation as someone who can be trusted to not act like a typical lying politician.

I'm about to send $100 off to the Buttigieg campaign. He's my wife's favorite candidate, and Mayor Pete is looking better to me after his recent debate performance. I definitely agree with this Buttigieg statement.

“We need to defeat Donald Trump,” he said, noting that Trump’s reelection campaign has already accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars. “We shouldn’t try to do it with one hand tied behind our back.”