Salem Political Snark

Sleaze warning: Reid Sund hires Chuck Adams in Ward 7 race

Watch out, residents of south Salem's Ward 7.

A tsunami of sleaze could be coming your way as the City Council race between Vanessa Nordyke and Reid Sund heats up between now and the May 2020 primary election.

Chuck Adams

I say this because Sund's campaign finance reporting indicates that Chuck Adams' firm, New Media Northwest, is working for the Friends of Reid Sund committee.

As you can see in this screenshot, there's a cozy (and rather incestuous) relationship between New Media Northwest and Friends of Reid Sund. In the sample of transactions below, New Media Northwest made $1,135 worth of cash and in-kind contributions to the Sund campaign. Then the Sund campaign paid $1,300 to New Media Northwest.

Chuck Adams works almost entirely for conservative/Republican candidates (I said "almost" because while I didn't recognize any liberal/Democratic names among the 51 successful first-time candidates on the home page of the New Media web site, it's possible Adams has worked for a Dem.)

Adams came to my attention in 2010, when I wrote a piece for Blue Oregon, "GOP flack Chuck Adams sleazes up Marion County charter change campaign." Excerpt:

The Salem Chamber of Commerce is leading the opposition to the Measure. This is to be expected, given the extreme pro-development and anti-environment leanings of two current commissioners, Sam Brentano and Patti Milne. The Measure is threatening to those in the Marion County power structure, because it would make the commissioners more accountable to ordinary citizens rather than special interests.

Even so, I've been wondering why the "No on 24-292" campaign has been so especially sleazy. Opponents have been way over the top with their untruths and fabrications. Today I learned the likely reason: Chuck Adams is the consultant supporting the Salem Chamber of Commerce's political action committee.

Adams is a long-time strategist for right-wing causes who fell on hard times back in 2007 when he was booted by the Republican leadership. He's been involved in some nasty "Swiftboating" campaigns, and has been called a "hit man," "pit bull," and "flack."

I can believe it, given the nasty deceptions in a letter opposing the Measure from Walt Beglau, the Marion County District Attorney, that arrived in voters' mailboxes last Saturday, May 1.

Now, hopefully Reid Sund will tell Adams that he wants to run a clean campaign against Vanessa Nordyke. But the fact that the Sund campaign is working with New Media Northwest, which is based in Salem, is a disturbing sign that Sund is prepared to go low when Nordyke goes high. 

If this happens, I think the tactic could backfire against Sund.

People are fed up with the never-ending rancor and divisiveness in Washington, D.C. and don't want to see this at the local level here in Salem. It's fine that Sund is a conservative and Nordyke is a progressive. This should make for an engaging battle of ideas and policy positions that Ward 7 voters would appreciate.

However, Chuck Adams has a lengthy history of stretching the truth beyond acceptable political bounds. Here's some excerpts from stories in the Portland Oregonian that indicate how Adams has slung mud at opponents of candidates he's been hired to work for. I've boldfaced parts for emphasis.

SELECTED ARTICLE EXCERPTS ABOUT CHUCK ADAMS FROM THE OREGONIAN

EDITORIAL - Mud that will stick to Oregon's shoes
October 31, 2006
SUMMARY: A dirty, disgusting race in east Multnomah County will leave lingering stains on the state and its Legislature

That's not just mud supporters of Republican Karen Minnis and Democrat Rob Brading are flinging around east Multnomah County. It's poison.

It's the very stuff that makes voters thoroughly sick of politics and politicians. It's the toxic substance that lawmakers have tracked into the Oregon Capitol and the United States Congress, leading to sweeping paralysis in both places.

Now this poison is billowing out of House District 49. The first blast was a flier produced by Minnis' longtime political hatchet man, Chuck Adams, claiming Brading has "a history of supporting pornography" because, as a library board member, he opposed placing filters on library computers. Then Adams produced a mailer accusing Brading of "unethical and immoral" behavior --wink, wink, nudge, nudge -- when Brading, who is heterosexual, briefly served as an executive director of a gay-rights group 16 years ago.

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EDITORIAL - An expensive race, and a cheap shot
August 31, 2006
SUMMARY: A flier saying Rob Brading has a "history" of pornography is ugly, and Karen Minnis should tell her allies to halt it

Mud is hard to throw. It sticks to your hands, flies off in unexpected directions and even, sometimes, winds up splattering the last person you'd want to dirty. Like, say, House Speaker Karen Minnis, R-Wood Village.

Minnis has found flecks of dirt sticking to her campaign ever since her longtime political consultant, Chuck Adams, and others began hurling gobs of mud at Rob Brading, her Democratic opponent in the Nov. 7 election. Minnis' supporters have produced a nasty campaign flier that features a photograph of Brading under the headline, "This man is responsible for children viewing Internet porn in our county library." It claims Brading has a "history of supporting pornography."

In fact, that "history" amounts to nothing more than serving on the 15-member Multnomah County Library Advisory Board and joining in the board's opposition to filters to block access to sex-related Web sites on library computers --even those routinely available to children.

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Oregon Legislature Oregon's next election might be decided by a man you've never met
July 26, 2005
SUMMARY: GOP strategist Chuck Adams has quietly become a key player with a refuse-to-lose attitude that's won him fans and critics

...Some Republicans frown on Adams' approach, however, saying it is divisive and focuses too much on personal attacks. "The politics of personal attack are his specialty," says Rob Patridge, a former three-session House Republican from Medford who has known Adams since 1989.

Sen. Joanne Verger, D-Coos Bay, agrees. She has run for office every two years since 1990, but she says last year's campaign by Republican opponent Al Pearn was the dirtiest she's ever seen. She says the person described in Pearn's campaign, which Adams worked on, "had no similarity to me or my record."

Verger, who narrowly won, says her favorite example was a Pearn flier that claimed she had voted for $24 billion worth of tax increases. Adams says the number was an honest mistake. The flier was supposed to say $2.4 billion, but a decimal point was mistakenly left out, and the campaign acknowledged the error in a news release.

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CROSSFIRE OF COMPLAINTS HITS TOP GOP CONSULTANT June 9, 2000

...Adams has run afoul of elections law before. In 1995, he pleaded guilty to failing to properly verify signatures on initiative petitions he submitted, a felony for which he was fined $1,000 and given two years' probation.

Adams also is at the center of a complaint lodged with the Elections Division involving the rancorous race for Salem mayor between incumbent Mike Swaim, who won the nonpartisan election, and challenger Glenn Wheeler.

Adams produced a controversial ad attacking Swaim, a lawyer, for representing a convicted murderer on appeal. The ad was paid for by Gordon Miller, a Salem dentist who is active in Republican politics, and was listed on campaign finance disclosure reports as part of an "independent expenditure" campaign against Swaim.

State law forbids coordination between someone who produces an independent ad and the candidate the ad is designed to help. But Adams also was Wheeler's campaign manager. In a complaint filed with the Elections Division, Vern Golay of Salem contends the independently produced ad violated state elections law because of Adams' dual role in the campaign: producer of the independent ad and Wheeler's campaign manager.

Fred Neal, state elections manager, said his division is investigating the claim. Swaim, who was angered by the ad Adams produced, said political consultants are too anonymous and should be held accountable for their work. "Adams ought to be appropriately spotlighted as the creator of this sort of gutter politics," he said."

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POLITICAL MACHINE HUMS BEHIND LEGISLATIVE RACES
November 1, 1998
Summary: Paid professionals, party leaders, lobbyists and rich contributors almost invisibly coordinate the resources and direction of the most competitive campaigns

If you live in a town with a hard-fought Oregon legislative race, there's a good chance the campaign fliers jamming your mailbox came from one of the desks of two people you've never heard of -- Chuck Adams or Mark Wiener.

Neither are on Tuesday's ballot, but as two of the top mail consultants in this year's legislative campaigns, they could have more effect on what voters decide than the candidates do. It's their job to get your attention.

...Adams also produced a mailer for Gianella and Rep. Jane Lokan, R-Milwaukie, that featured what looked like a young black gang member pointing a pistol at the reader over the headline: "Welcome to the neighborhood." Adams insisted he didn't think about race when he chose the image from a national photo archive to vividly illustrate the issue of juvenile crime. But after critics, particularly African Americans, objected and said it unfairly stereotyped, Adams conceded that he might have made a mistake.

Adams and Wiener say that although voters might profess to dislike hard-hitting attacks, they respond to them.

"It's almost never just about what a person stands for," Adams said. "It's always about a mix. The point of that is that negative information is powerful. . . . People thrive on negativity."

Yin and Yang homeless proposals: car camping and Hillcrest purchase

Homelessness is too big a problem in both Salem and elsewhere for one-dimensional solutions. It's going to take a wide variety of ideas, both tried-and-true and out-of-the-box, to make a dent in Salem's homeless population.

So congrats to City Councilor Chris Hoy for a small "yin" proposal that would set up an organized location on private property for people who sleep in their cars. 

A Salem Reporter story, "Salem official eyes organized camping for people who live in vehicles," describes Hoy's idea.

As city of Salem staff hunt for a place where homeless residents may legally set up tents, staff may also soon look for a place for cars, too.

Councilor Chris Hoy on Monday plans to ask staff to report back on how Salem can organize a place to camp for people who live in their vehicles. A draft of Hoy’s motion can be viewed online.

“Currently, many Salem residents experiencing homelessness live out of their cars or recreational vehicles,” the motion said. “There are few legal options for these residents to locate and maintain their vehicle for any period of time.”

Camping in cars also may impact neighborhoods and businesses, the motion said, with litter and the “unintended use of right-of-way as living space.”

The motion is another attempt in recent weeks by Salem officials to designate a place for homeless residents to spend the night.

Making it easier for homeless people to live out of their cars or RVs isn't a big step forward, but it's better than doing nothing.

On the other hand, Gene Pfeifer and Fay DeMeyer have a very yang'ish Big Idea: purchase the 45-acre Hillcrest property in south Salem and fashion it into a place where as many as 800 homeless people could live and receive workplace training.

So says a lengthy Statesman Journal story about the proposal.

It's great to see some creative thinking about how to deal with Salem's homeless problem. Sure, turning the Hillcrest property into what Pfeifer and DeMeyer are calling Hope Crest (nice name) faces long odds. But it sure would be nice if Hope Crest became a reality.

Here's some excerpts from the Statesman Journal story.

Gene Pfeifer sees an opportunity to save taxpayer money and put vacant public buildings back into use. Fay DeMeyer sees a chance to build a community where up to 800 homeless people are not just housed and fed but trained to reenter the workforce.

The pair — a local developer and a psychology instructor — are leading the charge to launch a residential program for the homeless at the shuttered Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility campus in southeast Salem.

It's unlike anything ever tried in Salem. And while the approach has been used elsewhere in the country, so far it's receiving a lukewarm reception here.

They call it Hope Crest, a play on the name of the youth facility closed in 2017. The 45-acre property, about 5 miles from downtown, includes 17 buildings on a hilltop surrounded by a perimeter fence.

...Two potential buyers backed out after their offers were accepted by the Oregon Department of Administrative Services because the property didn't meet their development needs.

Pfeifer and DeMeyer made their move after the latest contract was terminated.

They established the Hope Crest Foundation, outlined their plan and introduced it to people with clout (business leaders and elected officials) and expertise (advocates and agencies who serve the homeless).

The foundation made an initial offer of $2.1 million for the property Nov. 15 and has since revised it at least twice to $2.7 million — just so it would be taken seriously. Members heard one of the previously accepted offers was $2.1 million, Pfeifer said.

...Pfeifer and DeMeyer envision creating a safe community for the homeless, a place where people could have temporary housing and get all the services they need, including substance abuse and mental health treatment and education and job training.

Salem City Council allows homeless to camp on public property. But where?

At last night's City Council meeting a big change was made to the homeless ordinance that passed at the previous meeting, and required a "second reading" to become law.

Instead of banning camping on public property entirely, the council decided to allow homeless people to camp on approved city-owned property. Here's some excerpts from a Salem Reporter story by Troy Brynelson, "Salem bans open camping and now seeks a place to host it."

(Kudos to Brynelson for using "eighty-sixing" in his story. I haven't seen this term used in a long time, and I'm old.)

Tents and other dwellings will soon have to disappear from sidewalks and boulevards after the Salem City Council on Monday night banned camping on public property.

But city officials aren’t eighty-sixing campers altogether. The city is taking two weeks to designate a spot for them to camp.

Councilors Tom Andersen and Vanessa Nordyke orchestrated the idea, separately pitching that city staff needed to find public property for campers to move when the ban goes into effect on Monday, Dec. 16.

As a result, city employees are expected to report to the council next Monday and what city-owned property could be used as an impromptu campground. Andersen said without such a space, it’s unclear where the camping populace would go.

Well, it's also unclear where homeless campers are going to end up under the new policy. Maybe the City of Salem owns vacant property that would make a fine place for an organized homeless camp. I'm just clueless as to where that property might be.

Parks seemingly would be ruled out. So would right of ways adjacent to busy streets. A downtown homeless camp would be too controversial. But a camp far distant from social services wouldn't make sense either.

Nordyke and Andersen, along with the rest of the City Council, did seem to make a wise decision. A Statesman Journal story by Jonathan Bach, "Salem council may set aside city property as designated camping sites for the homeless," says:

People experiencing homelessness have a shrinking list of places to go as cold weather sets in. They have been barred from camping in city parks, spurned from private land and rousted from beneath public bridges.

City officials have attempted to connect the homeless with social services, but that doesn't change the fact that area shelters do not have the capacity to give everyone a place to rest at night. Advocates estimate the homeless population to be approximately 1,800 people strong at a given time within the urban growth boundary, while the area only has about 300 emergency shelter beds. Warming shelters opened recently to bolster that number temporarily.

It's one thing if a homeless person chooses to camp out because they prefer this to being in a shelter. However, it's another thing if there aren't enough shelter beds available for every person who wants one -- which appears to be the case currently.

Last Sunday's Sixty Minutes program had an interesting segment on Seattle's homeless population. You can watch it via the Sixty Minutes web site. It featured an interview with a homeless family who has been living in a tent in a camp on public property, very much like what Salem is planning.

A transcript says:

In the shadow of Interstate 5 in Seattle, on a vacant strip of public land, this is Tent City 3. There are about 50 people living here, without heat or running water.

Ethan Wood is celebrating his third birthday. He's lived in a tent for the past year and a half. 

His parents, Tricia and Josiah, told us Ethan has an enlarged heart and suffers from bouts of asthma and croup so severe, they've had to take him to the emergency room several times. Last winter, one of Seattle's coldest in recent memory, Ethan was sleeping in a tent, covered with blankets, sandwiched between his parents for warmth.

Anderson Cooper: Did you ever think, "Well, this is not the place, we should have our child"?

Josiah Wood: We don't want our son here. We don't want to be here. But as of right now, this is the safest place for us.

Tricia Wood: Absolutely. 

Josiah Wood: Because we know the people, we know the rules, and--

Tricia Wood: Our family gets to stay together.

Josiah Wood: And our family stays together.

This was an eye-opener for me. I hadn't realized that many homeless people have full-time jobs that pay considerably more than minimum wage.

Tricia Wood: I used to be one of those people that thought that if anyone was homeless they just needed to go get a job. That would solve their homeless problems.

Anderson Cooper: How would you answer that question now? Why can't they just get a job?

Tricia Wood: Oh my goodness. Maybe they have a job. 

Josiah Wood has a full-time job. He gets up before dawn and takes mass transit to work as a maintenance supervisor at the Hard Rock Café downtown. Though he makes $19.50 an hour, the rent for an average one-bedroom apartment in Seattle would eat up half his salary. He and Tricia say they've been saving up money so they can afford a security deposit and monthly rent.

Now, rents in Seattle must be a lot higher than rents in Salem. But there must be quite a few homeless people in Salem who also are working, yet can't afford a market-rate apartment.

It'd be great if our local journalists could do what Sixty Minutes did: interview homeless people who don't fit the stereotype of mentally ill, drug abuser, unable to work. Several others featured in the Sixty Minutes segment had full-time jobs, including a postal worker woman who lives in an old RV, and a man who worked at DEQ, I recall.

The more we can recognize the diversity of homeless people and appreciate that they are just like the rest of us, apart from not having a home, the easier it will be for those worried about having a homeless camp near them to accept the camp as a temporary solution.

The Sixty Minutes piece did note that there's a time limit in Seattle on how long a camp can be in one place. Salem probably needs to have the same policy, to make the camp on public property more acceptable to near-by businesses and residences.

This is one of several makeshift encampments in Seattle that are allowed by the city. Decisions are made by camp residents, who are also required to do chores and take turns guarding the tents. But about every three months, all the residents in Tent City Three agree to pack up and move to a new location. It's an arrangement they make with the landowners who let them pitch their tents. No one wants a camp of homeless people in their neighborhood for very long.

When we visited Ethan and his parents in September, they had just packed up their tent near the highway and were setting up in a church pastor's backyard. It was the eighth time they've had to move in the past year and a half.

Statesman Journal print circulation is down 36% in last two years

Salem's daily newspaper, the Statesman Journal, is experiencing a big decline in print circulation: it's down 36% between June 30, 2017 and June 30, 2019, which is an annualized rate of decline of 20% for those two years.

Here's a screenshot from a searchable database of 200 newspapers that's included in a recent Boston Business Journal story, "Most Gannett papers are losing print circulation faster than average."

This shows the results of a search for Oregon newspapers.

It's interesting that while Eugene and Salem have roughly equal populations, the Eugene Register-Guard had a 2019 print circulation that was almost exactly double that of the Salem Statesman Journal. And the Eugene paper had a much lower decline in circulation, 23.9% for the two years vs. Salem's 35.7%.

I was curious to see where the Statesman Journal ranked among the 200 daily newspapers. I looked through the searchable database and found that 6 newspapers had an equal two year circulation decline of 35.7%; 62 newspapers had a larger circulation decline; and 132 newspapers had a smaller circulation decline.

So the Statesman Journal was in the bottom third, approximately. Meaning, about two-thirds of the 200 newspapers had a smaller two-year print circulation decline than the Statesman Journal.

This isn't good news for Statesman Journal subscribers who prefer to read a print newspaper rather than an online version, which includes my wife and I. 

The Boston Business Journal story says:

The AAM [Alliance for Audited Media] provided data on a total of 200 daily papers owned by Gannett and New Media that filed circulation data for both [t]he quarters ending in June 2017 and June 2019 (Gannett says it now owns 260 newspapers nationwide, but not all newspapers file circulation data with AAM). The total weekday circulation at those newspapers was 2.95 million as of this past June, down from 4.34 million as of two years earlier.

That represents an 18 percent annualized rate of decline — significantly faster than the 12 percent rate of decline at daily print papers nationwide cited by Pew.

As noted above, the Statesman Journal had a 20 percent annualized rate of circulation decline, which is much greater than the nationwide figure of 12 percent.

This probably also isn't good news for Statesman Journal staff, since the story notes:

The new Gannett is now under intense pressure from shareholders to fulfill its vow to cut $300 million in expenses, and it’s likely that it’ll turn to its most underperforming newspapers to do so. Gannett did not respond to a request for comment on its circulation trends.

Of course, digital-only subscribers are off-setting some of the decline in print circulation. However, the Boston Business Journal story says:

While some regional dailies — notably the Boston Globe — have been successful in adding new online subscribers, the Gannett and New Media publications lag far behind. As of June, Gannett said that its digital-only subscribers totaled 607,000 — less than a third of its print subscribers. At GateHouse, online subscribers make up less than 20 percent of its print circulation.

It seems to me that the Statesman Journal is on its way to becoming a digital-only newspaper with a smaller staff and advertising revenues. One notable indication of this is how the Statesman Journal is charging print subscribers.

Almost exactly two years ago, on November 27, 2017, I wrote "Cancel your Statesman Journal subscription for 30 days to save $500 a year." 

I've subscribed to the Statesman Journal for 40 years. Today I cancelled my subscription (for 30 days), because this will save me $510 in 2018 -- following the outrageous Monday-Sunday home delivery rate increase from $44 to $59.01 that takes effect December 1.

(What's up with that one cent?)

That's a 34% increase, which is on top of a 14% increase last March.

In June I wrote a pissed-off blog post, "Statesman Journal outrage: new subscribers charged half of what loyal subscribers pay." Now the situation is even worse. New subscribers are being charged a bit over a third of what us long-time subscribers are paying.

New subscribers are still getting the same sweet deal: $11 a month for Monday-Sunday home delivery for the first six months, then $22 a month after that. 

So, after paying $11/month for six months, then paying $22/month, here's what the Statesman Journal notified me that I'd be paying as of July 1, 2019: $48.

This is uncomfortably close to the $59.01 rate that I was going to pay at the "old subscriber" rate as of December 1, 2017. Thus new subscribers are being hit with very large increases in the print home delivery rate, which likely explains a big part of the 36% decline in print circulation in the past two years.

Plus, there's been a clear decline in the quality of the Statesman Journal.

Investigative reporting is basically non-existent. The Opinion section has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. There's only one sports reporter, I believe. And the online Salem Reporter is only $100 a year, while the Statesman Journal is charging me $576 a year for home delivery of the print edition.

I hope the Statesman Journal continues as a print newspaper. But it seems increasingly likely that it won't.

In 300 words, Katyal makes a great argument for Trump's impeachment

Today I started reading Neal Katyal's compelling little book, Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump.

Katyal has personally argued thirty-nine Supreme Court cases. He's a law professor at Georgetown University. He's taught an impeachment course there twenty times.

And he's an excellent writer. Below is how his book starts out. In a bit less than 300 words, Katyal nails the case for impeaching Trump. The rest of the book is icing on the impeachment cake.

So if you're in favor of impeachment and someone questions why this makes sense, say you'd like to read them a brief argument by a noted impeachment expert.

Once I read the following, I was hooked on Katyal's book. Not that I needed much convincing about the need for impeachment. I just loved how clearly and succinctly Katyal laid out the case for impeaching Trump. Enjoy...

Imagine if it had worked.

Imagine if our president had leveraged his role as commander in chief to convince a foreign power to open an investigation into his political opponent.

Imagine if the president's rival lost the primary because news broke that he was under investigation.

Imagine if that meant the president faced a weaker candidate in November 2020 -- and won reelection as a result.

Imagine if our president owed his victory to a foreign power and we never found out.

Imagine how much leverage the leaders of that country would have on our foreign policy decisions.

Imagine how easily they could blackmail our commander in chief.

Imagine what our president would do next, knowing he could subvert our democracy without paying a price.

Now, imagine if, eventually, we did find out. But it was too late -- because he had already won.

Imagine if our president abused the power vested in him to win -- and we knew it.

Imagine what that would do to our faith in elections, to our trust in government, to our belief that we live in a democracy.

If President Trump's efforts to coerce Ukraine into interfering with our democracy had stayed a secret until the 2020 election -- if a brave whistleblower hadn't risked his career, and his safety, to speak out -- we would have fundamentally, perhaps irrevocably, lost faith in the legitimacy of our republic.

This is why we have no choice but to impeach and remove President Trump: because he wielded the powers of the presidency to serve himself instead of the people he represents; because he was willing to undermine our democracy to help his prospects of reelection; and because he has stated repeatedly and unapologetically, that he would do it again.

Salem City Council's "sit-lie" decision seems well-balanced

Democracy in action.

At last night's City Council meeting there was spirited debate about a proposed ordinance aimed at reducing perceived problems caused by homeless people, the most controversial part being a ban on sitting or lying on a sidewalk during daytime hours. 

I watched much of the meeting via a CCTV feed. Citizens testifying against the ordinance far outnumbered those in favor of it, who mostly were from the downtown business community and Chamber of Commerce.

Both sides had reasonable points to make. Homeless people do cause problems, both in downtown Salem and elsewhere. But the sit-lie portion of the proposed ordinance (which had the strong support of the police department) was open to criticism for both constitutional and compassion reasons.

When the City Council started debate on this issue following the public testimony, Councilor Chris Hoy proposed several amendments to the ordinance.

The voting and discussion was rather hard to follow, even for members of the City Council, who had to ask questions about what was being voted on, and what its effect would be. The first amendment, to remove the sit-lie part of the ordinance, was approved on a 5-4 vote.

Interestingly, Councilor Hoy voted against the amendment, as did Mayor Chuck Bennett and Councilors Jim Lewis and Brad Nanke. Councilors Andersen, Leung, Nordyke, Kaser, and Ausec provided the five votes that eliminated the sit-lie provision. 

In the end, a stripped-down version of the ordinance was approved on a 8-1 vote that includes a ban on homeless shelters on public property (tents, cardboard structures, etc.) and a ban on leaving belongings unattended for a period of time (24 hours, I believe).

This seems like a reasonable compromise, though I'm sure it won't please many people, including some downtown business owners. Councilor Andersen shared a good summary of last night's proceedings in a Facebook post. See below.

I agree with Andersen that shelters and unattended property are especially bothersome. When I see a homeless person sitting/lying on a bench or a sidewalk, I see a human being who deserves care and compassion.

But a fully enclosed sidewalk shelter, such as one that sits near the corner of Court and Commercial streets, strikes me as an ugly incursion onto public property that shouldn't be allowed. And won't be, if the City Council passes the ordinance after a second reading in December. 

Seemingly there should be places on private property where homeless people can be allowed to put up shelters, as is being done on the Arches property just north of downtown. Hopefully affordable housing eventually can be found for homeless people, which naturally is far superior to living in a tent or other temporary shelter. 

Here's Councilor Andersen's Facebook report. I've added some paragraph breaks to make it easier to read.

SIT/LIE BAN -NO, CAMPING BAN -YES
Last night the City council, in a long meeting, wrestled with the proposed sit/lie/camping/exclusion/abandoned property ordinance. Very powerful testimony from everyone, on all sides, who spoke.

There was an amendment put forth which removed the downtown ban from the ordinance, which I supported, consistent with my views (see below). The amendment passed on a 5-4 vote. Those voting to remove the ban were Councilors Kaser, Nordyke, Leung, Ausec and I. The other four councilors (Mayor, Hoy, Lewis, and Nanke) voted to retain the ban.

We then voted on another amendment, to ban camping city wide (previously there had not been a ban on camping in the city limits). That ban passed unanimously.

Then, we did not expand the downtown area exclusionary ban. (There already is a procedure to ban from downtown folks who, while in the downtown area, break other laws already on the books.) Finally, we voted on the remaining parts of the ordinance – a city wide camping ban and a provision about what to do with abandoned property downtown [if abandoned for 24 hours, property would be stored for a period of time – 30 days (I think) with notice provision, then destroyed].

All along I have said we need to balance the need for a vibrant downtown and the needs and concerns of those who live, work, shop and own businesses there with the needs of and concern for those whose unfortunate life circumstances have brought them to the downtown are. This is a difficult balance and I believe we achieved the best possible result last night.

I have always felt that one of the main problems is a visual one, tents, shopping carts and the like in the downtown area. This is understandable from both sides – if all your worldly possessions could be fit into one or two shopping carts, you would never want them out of your sight; with the result being visual “pollution” downtown, with attendant issues.

However, the sit/lie ordinance may not pass legal muster and would most likely not be effective. Instead it would just suck up limited city resources which could be better used (downtown toilets, storage areas and the like). Now we can move forward together to continue to improve the life of downtown and the lives of all who live in Salem.

Supporters of Trump need to be treated as co-creators of his unethical world

Having watched a good share of the two weeks of televised open hearings in the House impeachment inquiry, I'm well-qualified to draw some reasoned conclusions about our national politics.

(1) Trump is the worst president in our nation's history. Not just recent history. Our entire history. 
(2) Trump doesn't care about what's best for our country. He only cares about what's best for himself.
(3) Congressional Republicans have sold out their ethical values in exchange for Trump not tweeting bad stuff about them.
(4) Anyone who still supports Trump is guilty of aiding and abetting his unethical behavior.

To me, that fourth point is the most disturbing.

I expect Trump and his Washington D.C. cronies to act like the self-serving jerks that they are. What surprises me is how relatively steady his support has been, even as Trump's personal and policy failings have become more apparent.

A Washington Post story this month contained charts of Trump's approval rating over time among all adults, Democrats, independents, and Republicans.

The story says:

Overall, Trump’s approval hasn’t changed all that much on our polling since he’s been president. He has never been above 42 percent approval and never under 36 percent. Right now, he’s at 38 percent approval, on the lower side of things.

Well, Trump's approval should be on the lower side of things.

Extremely solid evidence shows that our country's Liar-in-Chief used his position to bolster his re-election chances by seeking the involvement of a foreign power in a made-up investigation of a chief opponent, Joe Biden, holding vital military assistance to Ukraine hostage for 55 days until a whistle-blower revealed Trump's sordid scheme.

Here's Trump's approval rating among Republicans.

Yes, it's good to see that now only about 75% of Republicans approve of Trump, down from almost 90% at previous points in his presidency. It's just hard to understand how three out of four Republicans can approve of someone who puts his own personal interest above the national interest.

And equally bad is Trump's incessant and willful lying. We've never had a president with such a disregard for the truth. When Trump is caught in a lie, he feels no shame. Instead, he doubles down, repeating the lie.

Today Trump spouted at least 18 false claims in a 53 minute Fox & Friends interview. Probably more, since CNN says they are still fact-checking what he said. Here's a few examples.

CrowdStrike

Trump said that Democrats gave a computer server that was hacked in 2016 to "a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian."

Facts First: The cybersecurity company that investigated the hack, CrowdStrike, is a publicly traded American company co-founded by Dmitri Alperovitch, an American citizen who was born in Russia, not Ukraine. Regardless, such firms do not typically take possession of physical servers to conduct their analysis.

 

Asked if he is sure the Democrats gave the server to Ukraine, Trump did not cite any specific evidence. He said, "That's what the word is."

 

The accuracy of the whistleblower

Trump said that the whistleblower complaint about his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "bore no relationship to my call."

Facts First: The whistleblower's account of the call has largely been proven accurate.

In fact, the rough transcript released by Trump himself showed that the whistleblower's three primary allegations about the call were correct or very close to correct.

 

Marie Yovanovitch and Trump's photo

Trump claimed about Yovanovitch: "This ambassador that everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy. ... She's in charge of the embassy. She wouldn't hang it. It took like a year and a half, or two years, for her to get the picture up."

Facts First: There is no evidence that Yovanovitch refused to hang Trump's photo. It took the Trump administration more than nine months after his inauguration to distribute an official photo of Trump to government buildings such as embassies, CNBC reported in 2017. More than seven months into the term, the White House told The Washington Post that Trump had not yet sat for the photo.

 

A State Department official who has recently served in Kiev said Yovanovitch never sought to prevent Trump's photo from being put up at the embassy. The official said the photo did not arrive until late 2017.

 

Obama's aid to Ukraine

Trump said President Barack Obama sent only "pillows and sheets" in aid to Ukraine, adding, "He wouldn't send anything else."

Facts First: Obama did refuse to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, but he didn't send mere pillows and sheets; he sent counter-mortar radars, drones, armored Humvees and night vision devices, among other things.

 

Who is paying for Trump's tariffs on China

Trump blamed "the media" for trying to convince people that Americans are paying for Trump's tariffs on China.

Facts First: A bevy of economic studies have found that Americans are bearing the overwhelming majority of the tariff costs, and Americans make the actual tariff payments.

 

Thus it is impossible to believe anything that comes out of Trump's mouth, unless it is backed up by solid facts, which usually it isn't. This puts the United States in a horrible position, both domestically and in our foreign affairs. When the President can't be trusted, negotiations and agreements become very difficult.

Yet three out of four Republicans aren't bothered enough by Trump's failure to abide by minimal standards of ethical behavior to say they disapprove of him.

Locally, this needs to be kept in mind when voting in city and state elections next year. Salem will be electing a mayor and four city councilors. Candidates for those offices should be asked, "Do you approve of Donald Trump?" In my opinion, any candidate who says "Yes" or refuses to answer the question doesn't deserve your vote.

Today Washington Post opinion writer Greg Sargent wrote a piece called, "Trump's GOP defenders cannot be shamed. It's time to try this instead." This is his instead. 

It’s time to drop the posture that Trump’s defenders can be shamed into accepting what has been unearthed, or that they can be shamed into arguing from a baseline of shared democratic values, or into arguing over how to interpret a comprehensive set of shared facts.

Instead, let’s rhetorically treat Trump’s defenders as his criminal accomplices. Not just as “enablers” of Trump’s corruption but as active participants in it.

Once this is accepted, it becomes obvious why they can’t be “won over,” because they are actively engaged in keeping the corruption in question from getting fully uncovered, in the belief that they, too, benefit from it, and that they, too, lose out if it’s exposed.

...Rather, the point is we need a much more fundamental change in our underlying treatment of the moment. We need to approach it from the premise that Trump’s defenders are not “gettable” because they are accomplices in the whole scheme -- and forthrightly describe what’s happening in kind.

Sargent appeared to be speaking mainly about Trump's defenders in Congress, but his point also applies to every person in the country who continues to support the unethical swamp of the Trump presidency.

Here's how Democrats and independents view Trump. Most disapprove of him, which is some good news that hopefully will translate into Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

Oregon's urban-rural divide explained by political scientist

So, why is there such a tension between people in rural Oregon and urban Oregon?

We saw this divide in action earlier in 2019, when Republicans in the state Senate walked out in protest of a climate change bill, supported by loggers driving their trucks in circles around the Capitol building, horns blaring.

Today a political scientist from Western Oregon University, Mark Henkels, offered up some explanations of what's going on here in the course of his presentation at a Salem City Club meeting, It's Complicated: The Politics of Oregon's Rural-Urban Divide.

Mark Henkels

Early on in his talk, Henkels defined "urban" and "rural" as applied to Oregon counties. He considers that our state has six urban counties: Benton, Clackamas, Lane, Marion, Multnomah, and Washington. The rest of the state is rural.

He said that because Salem is the second or third largest city in Oregon, that argues for Marion County being urban. Deschutes County includes Bend, so arguably it is semi-urban, but not enough to make his urban cut.

No big surprise: currently rural Oregon is more Republican than urban Oregon.

But back in 1988, that wasn't the case. Democrats even had a slight edge over Republicans in rural areas, 47% to 41%. (Henkels did mention that many of the Dems were Reagan voters who hadn't changed their registration.) And in urban areas Democrats and Republicans each had 44%.

Much had changed by 2018.

Rural Oregon was only 27% Democratic, a drop of twenty points, while Republican registration declined by only eight points to 33%, with non-affiliated voters jumping markedly from 13% to 33%. In urban areas, Democrats had come to vastly outnumber Republicans, 41% to 21%, with non-affiliated voters rising to 31% of the electorate.

Henkels considers that economic trends explain much of the political changes. 

Rural Oregon still tilts toward agricultural and industrial sectors, while urban Oregon has become largely post-industrial. Meaning, services, high-tech, medical, and education sectors. Post-industrial workers are more diverse. They move around a lot. They go where the jobs are.

By contrast, traditionally a family farm often was worked by succeeding generations, and a child might follow a parent in working at the same industrial plant. 

Agriculture and industry tend to foster social stability, traditional values, and a desire to preserve the existing economy. Henkels called this cluster "material" values, which doesn't really mean materialistic or non-spiritual. Rather, I took that term to mean a connection to what already exists, a conservative clinging to the things that have worked in the past.

Urban areas in Oregon tend to embrace post-materialist values.

Quality of life is as important, if not more so, than how much money someone makes. Protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are valued goals. This slide shows how drastically rural Oregon and urban Oregon differ in this regard.

A whopping 59% of the Portland metro area holds post-materialist values, while all urban areas are at 46% and rural areas only 17%. Looking at political leaning rather than geography, 49% of liberals are post-materialist, while moderates are at 33% and conservatives at 18%.

While this is my take, not that of Henkels, it seems to me that it's totally wrong to say that rural conservatives are "values voters." Actually, urban liberals hold equally strong values, just different ones. It means as much to a Portland progressive that Oregon does more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as it means to an Eastern Oregon conservative that logging jobs be protected.

Along that line, this slide shows that more lumber is being produced with fewer mills, and hence fewer workers. Henkels said this mirrors trends in other American industries, with automation and production in foreign countries leading to industrial job losses in this country.

So Henkels noted there isn't an easy answer to the question, "What is it like to be a true Oregonian?" People with widely divergent values or political leanings can say with equal fervor, "I'm an Oregonian. This is the way it should be."

One reason the urban-rural divide has become so extreme is that political beliefs in general have become more extreme. The slide above shows the distribution of Democrats and Republicans on a scale of political values. The vertical lines show the median value on the scale, so the closer the two lines are, the more closely Democrats and Republicans agree.  

The gap has widened markedly since 2004.

Exacerbating this tribalism, Henkels said that politics has become nationalized, with candidates in local elections taking on national party positions to a greater extent than before. And increasingly people get their news and opinions from different media outlets, Fox News vs. MSNBC being one example. He also noted that in many rural parts of Oregon, conservative talk radio from national sources is ubiquitous, whereas urban areas have more choices.

On the plus side, near the end of his talk Henkels said that Oregonians share a lot of values. We value good education and quality health care. We agree about environmental protections in some areas, such as preserving salmon runs. We value aging services, an area that Oregon has been a pioneer in.

The suburbs and growing cities like Bend could become the new middle ground. A more complex economy in rural areas likely would narrow the values gap between urban and rural Oregon.

In the Q&A period, Henkels talked some about Oregon's land use system. Rural people often blame urban growth boundaries and other aspects of our land use laws for the problems facing the agricultural and industrial sectors. However, he noted that the area outside Sacramento looks very different from the area outside Salem, even though both are state capitals.

Oregon has considerably more protections for agricultural land, which is why we have farmland so close to urban areas, rather than sprawling subdivisions. So farmers should be thankful for our land use system, though naturally there's room for improvement in it.

Homelessness is a problem that's too big for Salem to solve

Yesterday I attended a Progressive Salem meeting that featured remarks by two highly qualified City Council candidates, Vanessa Nordyke and Trevor Phillips. (Nordyke has been appointed to the council to fill a vacancy, and is seeking a full term in the May 2020 election.) 

Homelessness came up in both audience Q&A's and the initial remarks. What struck me loud and clear is a simple fact that shouldn't be overlooked even though it is obvious:

Homelessness is a complex problem that will require action at all levels of government, plus the private sector and nonprofit organizations, to find viable solutions.

Sure, the City of Salem needs to do its part. A controversial sit-lie ordinance apparently will be discussed by the City Council on November 25. A Salem Reporter story describes the basics of the ordinance.

The Sidewalk and Public Space Ordinance — known informally as “sit-lie” — is effectively a handful of proposed laws bundled together.

The ordinance would ban sitting or lying on sidewalks and other public rights-of-way from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. It would also ban leaving personal property unattended on public property during those same hours. And it would ban tents and other structures from sidewalks at all hours.

Salem police would have to warn violators on first offense and could write a ticket for a second offense.

If those crimes occur within one of Salem’s crime prevention districts — also known as “exclusion zones” — a person could be banned from that area. A person who ignores the ban could be arrested for trespassing.

Salem has two such exclusion zones: north Salem and downtown. Numerous crimes can lead to a ban in those areas, from violent crimes to a minor violating curfew.

Though the proposed sit-lie ordinance is getting a lot of attention from both advocates for homeless people and businesses affected by the homeless, obviously it would have little or no effect on the key homelessness issue: lack of homes for those who need one.

The City of Salem doesn't have enough money to maintain current services and programs, much less solve our local homelessness problem. Yet we have to do what we can, while realizing that action at the county, state, and federal level also has to occur. The situation is similar to that of global warming, albeit with a human face.

Meaning, Salem needs to adopt a Climate Action Plan that lays out ways our city can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Yet global warming is such a vast problem, every city, every state, and every country on Earth has to do its best to deal with the problem.

Ditto for homelessness. 

What's strange about homelessness, though, is how the problem of people lacking homes is so severe at a time when an economic expansion is 11 years old and unemployment is very low. Thus it seems that income inequality and a lack of government resources are more to blame for rising homelessness than a lack of jobs.

As was noted at yesterday's meeting, many people are employed at low-paying jobs that leave them extremely vulnerable if something like bills for a car repair or medical expenses hit their pocketbook. 

Exacerbating the homeless problem in Salem is the presence of a state hospital and penitentiary. The United States' mental health and prison policies leave a lot to be desired, to put it mildly. We don't treat people as well as we should when they enter a mental hospital or prison, and when they leave, those people don't receive necessary support.

So many end up on the street.

What to do, then? Well, it seems to me that our country needs a major change in direction on many fronts: health care, social services, environmental policies, minimum wage, immigration -- to name a few. The Trump administration isn't to blame for all of the ills in the United States, but it has made many problems worse, rather than better.

Thus one of the most important things advocates for the homeless need to do is work for progressive change at every level: local, state, national. Yes, conservatives have a role to play in combatting homelessness, just as they do in other problem areas. 

But the private sector and market-based approaches aren't going to cut it when it comes to putting people in homes who now are living on the street. Government action is key, just as it is in the realm of health care and environmental protections. The United States doesn't lack the money needed to address homelessness. Our country lacks the political will.

Which only elections can address.

Somehow we've got to break the gridlock that's preventing the United States from becoming a genuinely caring, compassionate democracy. Oregon is better off than many states, since progressives control the Governor's office and both houses of the legislature. 

Even here, though, good intentions are more plentiful than concrete action. It's time to say No more talk! when it comes to dealing with serious problems, homelessness being one of them. If Democrats control the White House and Congress after the 2020 election, this will be great news for people lacking a home.

However, the gap between bemoaning a problem and doing something about it will remain unless we, the people, demand more and better from our elected officials. The Salem City Council needs to do its part. Real change, though, has to happen at the national level to make a serious dent in homelessness.

Does anyone fail to believe that a President Biden, or a President Warren, or a President Sanders would do more to help the homeless than a President Trump? Well, some people do, but they're wrong.

City Council candidate Reid Sund is too right-wing for Ward 7

Residents of Ward 7 in south Salem will have a clear choice in the May 2020 primary election, when they'll vote on who should be their city councilor following the resignation of Sally Cook. 

Vanessa Nordyke, a progressive like Cook, was appointed recently by the City Council to serve as the Ward 7 councilor for the rest of Cook's term, which runs until December 31, 2020. She will be on the May 2020 ballot.

Reid Sund, a conservative, has announced that he also is running to be the Ward 7 councilor. 

Since Ward 7 went for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a 50 to 36 margin in the 2016 presidential election, Sund is facing an uphill battle to win hearts and minds in this progressive-leaning part of town.

Here's some information gleaned from Sund's Facebook feed and other sources that shows how right-wing and voting-apathetic he is.

Sund doesn't vote regularly.
Since 2016, Reid Sund has only bothered to vote four times. He did not vote in the Ward 7 City Councilor race in May, 2016, the position he now wants to hold.

He did not bother to vote on Ballot Measure 101 in January 2018 that funded Medicaid expansion even though he worked at Salem Health. He did not bother to vote in the bond election to fund a seismic upgrade of the Salem Public Library. He did not bother to vote in the most recent Salem-Keizer School Board election.

He voted in these elections:

November 6, 2016 General Election (President, Congress, State)
May 6, 2017 District Election (School Board, Police Station Bond)
May 15, 2018 Primary Election (County Commissioner, School Bond)
November 6, 2018 General Election (Governor, State, County Commissioner, Measures)

He did not vote in these elections:

May 17, 2016 Primary Election (City Council, County Commissioner, Primary)
November 7, 2017 Special Election (Library Bond Measure)
January 23, 2018 Statewide Election (Assessment to Fund Health Care)
May 21, 2019 Special District Election (School Board)

Sund doesn't want Salem to reduce carbon poilution via a Climate Action Plan.

The context for the following Facebook post is that the City Budget Committee Sund served on debated funding for a Climate Action Plan (it ultimately was funded for $50,000 thanks to Councilor Tom Andersen).

There was never a suggestion that the funding be taken from the Salem Police Department, so Sund talked nonsense when he claimed the choice was between funding police or climate action. 

Sund favored the unsuccessful 2019 effort to recall Governor Kate Brown. The recall attempt was based on Brown's support of legislation that Republicans didn't like, not on any wrongdoing by Brown.


Sund supported the 2019 walkout of Republicans in the state Senate. The Republicans staged the walkout to block passage of legislation aimed at increasing clean energy jobs in Oregon, and reducing carbon pollution.

Sund was against more money for Oregon schools.

Sund supported the controversial relocation of Costco. The Costco development was opposed by the South Gateway Neighborhood Association and most members of the City Council.

On a lighter note... Reid Sund does take his Facebook middle name seriously. Or at least, seriously enough to wear a way-cool halfway-husked corn outfit.