With the May 17 election for Salem Mayor and four City Council seats coming up in about ten days -- VOTE! It's so easy with vote by mail -- the campaigning is hot and heavy.
Well, with Mayor candidate Chuck Bennett let's make that hot, heavy, and seemingly untruthful. I've gotten reports that Bennett has been saying things that are factually challenged (a polite way of putting it). Like...
(1) Telling people that the 2008 Streets and Bridges bonds will be paid off soon. Reportedly Bennett said this in an attempt to put a positive spin on an $80 million or so bond measure for a new police facility that is expected to be on the November 2016 ballot.
If the Streets and Bridges bonds are about to be paid off, then maybe Salem voters would be more likely to approve a property tax increase for a Police Facility Bond.
Problem is, Bennett's opponent, Carole Smith, sent me this information:
Chuck Bennett told the Grant Neighborhood Association last night that the 2008 Roads & Bridges bond will be paid off soon (before the Police Station bond is sold).
Here is what the City Recorder said:
The Streets and Bridges general obligation debt was issued in three series; 2009, 2012, and 2013. The 2012 debt issuance has the longest repayment term and will mature June 2026. Information regarding each series can be found in the FY 2015-16 Adopted Budget in the Debt Service Summary - General Obligation Debt section (printed page number 209, or scrolling page number 310) at:
So, the first and third bonds sales will be repaid in 2024 and the rest repaid in 2026. That doesn’t feel “soon” to me! Also, the Fire Bond will be repaid in 2022.
Interesting information!
Sure is. I dutifully looked at printed page 209 of the document linked above. Here's what I found:
Yes, there is still a lot of money left to pay on the three Streets and Bridges bonds: about $68 million. So what the City Recorder said about the payoff dates appears correct.
Which makes Chuck Bennett wrong.
I'll send Bennett a link to this post so he can comment on this. Given that Bennett is touting his nine years on the City Council, so "I know what I'm doing," it's surprising that he would be so mistaken about when the Streets and Bridges bonds would be paid off.
(2) Telling people that City officials never wanted a 75,000 square foot new police facility. This is untrue. I've followed this issue closely for several years. I've read all the reports regarding a new police facility, including stories in the Statesman Journal.
Such as this October 2013 SJ story on the Salem Community Vision web site, which says:
Taxpayers soon will hear the city's pitch for a seismic upgrade and redesign of the Vern Miller Civic Center, headquarters for Salem's city government and police department. The estimated cost: $70 million.
...One of the biggest changes: Police headquarters would be in a new three-story, 75,000- square-foot space at the civic center.
...City officials maintain that plenty of public outreach has been done over the years. The city had a yearlong collaboration with the University of Oregon's Sustainable City Initiative in 2010-11, where architecture students worked with a local architect to determine the city's space needs.
Mayor Peterson, City Manager Norris, and Police Chief Moore promoted the 75,000 square foot police facility plan at many community meetings. So I don't get how Chuck Bennett could claim that a police facility of this size never was considered adequate by City officials.
Methinks Councilor Bennett is trying to rewrite history in an attempt to justify the current 150,000 square foot "supersized" police facility that, naturally, will cost taxpayers much more than the original 75,000 square foot proposal.
(3) Telling people that the City of Salem's contract with Salem Downtown Partnership was terminated because of poor performance. I can understand why Chuck Bennett would try to spin the Salem Downtown Partnership story this way.
But it's pretty clear that Bennett's tale isn't what really happened, which I described in considerable detail in "City of Salem took over Salem Downtown Partnership for lousy reasons." Here's how that 2014 post started off:
A few days ago I talked with someone in-the-know about how the Salem (Oregon) City Manager, Linda Norris, ended up controlling on her own $215,000 in Economic Improvement District funds paid by downtown businesses.
It was a lengthy conversation. This person asked to talk with me because he/she was so disturbed about how the EID was handled, and liked my blog-reporting on other downtown issues.
I was on the phone with this person for about 90 minutes. I learned a lot about how the City of Salem ended up cancelling the contract Salem Downtown Partnership had to administer the Economic Improvement District (EID) money.
The headline, so to speak, is this:
Norris and other City of Salem staff set up Salem Downtown Partnership to fail. Instead of working cooperatively and collaboratively with this duly-selected organization that represented downtown businesses, the City undermined its efforts in various ways.
Now, admittedly this is the opinion of only one person. But this person was in a position to be very well informed about what happened during the period Salem Downtown Partnership (SDP) had the EID contract.
And, no, this person wasn't either of the key businesspeople who got SDP up and running -- Carole Smith and Eric Kittleson. He or she prefers to remain anonymous.
Chuck Bennett made the crucial City Council motion that allowed the City Manager, Linda Norris, to take over the money that supported Salem's downtown organization -- making her the unelected/unchosen (by downtown businesses) Empress of Downtown.
Here's what I learned from another knowledgeable person:
In May 2014, disgruntled downtown property owners voted the Economic Improvement District out of existence, as I described in "Who killed Salem's First Wednesday? Clueless city officials."
Salem's downtown has a lot of untapped potential. A big reason why downtown continues to struggle is the cluelessness of City officials who have undermined promotional efforts in our town's Historic District core.
The first thing to know is this: in 2013 City Manager Linda Norris and her City Council cronies dissolved the Salem Downtown Partnership organization that had been responsible for First Wednesday, using Economic Improvement District (EID) funds supplied by downtown businesses.
...Not surprisingly, downtown businesses weren't happy with the City Manager waltzing in, imperiously taking over the duly-appointed downtown organization and the EID funds contributed by those businesses, then doing a horrible job promoting downtown.
in May 2014 the business owners voted the EID out of existence in a show of no confidence for City Manager Norris and her secretive band of hand-picked advisory committee members (astoundingly, Norris served as the one-person "board of directors" for the fake downtown organization she set up after usurping the EID funds).
So Chuck Bennett, the Ward 1 city councilor who represents downtown, was instrumental in killing three positive forces: the Salem Downtown Partnership, the Economic Improvement District, and First Wednesday -- the promotion that now is a shadow of its former self, since the EID funds are no more.
I was explaining a bonding strategy that keeps property taxes for city infrastructure flat rather than spiking up and down. I can understand how either it was misunderstood or misstated neither changes the approach. As to the EID, there were serious failures to meet contract obligations by the contractor.
Posted by: Chuck Bennett | May 07, 2016 at 06:03 AM
Chuck, thanks for the explanation. I'm not sure what you mean by "flat," but then, I'm not very familiar with City of Salem property taxes. I assume you mean that the yearly cost to the taxpayer doesn't fluctuate as much as it would if a different bonding strategy were used. Perhaps this relates to the practice with the Streets and Bridges bond of selling bonds in different packages over time, rather than in one big chunk.
However, it still remains true that an $80 million police facility bond will put taxpayers on the hook for that amount, plus the financing costs. And that will be on top of the other bonds that haven't been paid off, along with the anticipated future bonds I've heard Mayor Peterson talk about upcoming bonds other than the police facility bond.
Regarding the EID, I realize it was the position of City officials that the contract obligations weren't met. But after spending 90 minutes on the phone with someone who had an "up close and personal" experience of the Salem Downtown Partnership's contract termination, this person's detailed description of what went on -- combined with his credibility -- led me to take what was said seriously.
Here's an excerpt from the blog post I wrote soon after talking with this person that contains key points:
http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2014/05/city-of-salem-took-over-salem-downtown-partnership-for-lousy-reasons.html
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(1) Salem Downtown Partnership had some growing pains. However, it was making good progress for such a young organization. Good people were being recruited for the board of directors. SDP was on its way to being a much-needed voice that spoke up for the interests of downtown businesses.
(2) City staff, though, kept undercutting the efforts of Salem Downtown Partnership. The City's contract with SDP was written in an unprofessional manner, since the benchmarks Salem Downtown Partnership had to meet were made virtually impossible to attain and the City "set traps" for those involved with SDP.
(3) Once City Manager Linda Norris was told the contract didn't make sense. She replied, "I know." This shows that all along City staff wanted the contract with Salem Downtown Partnership to be terminated, the excuse being that SDP wasn't meeting the unreasonable goals the City demanded in its agreement with the organization.
(4) For example, after SDP was awarded the contract, the City changed an ordinance to allow parking district money to be removed from the funds being administered by Salem Downtown Partnership. This decision, I was told, came out of the City Manager's office.
(5) Then the City Council required large contingencies in the EID budget to deal with the uncertain parking district money. For this and other reasons, I was told: "The City did a predatory job of administering the contract with Salem Downtown Partnership."
(6) This isn't the way Economic Improvement Districts are handled in other cities. I was told there are generally three levels of community capacity under which a City responsibly administers an EID contract: A - With a large umbrella organization that has existed for a long time, like a business alliance. B - Through a city-facilitated effort lasting a year or two where the goal is to establish an autonomous downtown organization. C - Business owners organize independently to build the capacity and dialogue needed to take on an EID partnership.
(7) The person I talked with said that Salem didn't have either A, B, or C. Thus it was irresponsible for the City to administer the contract with Salem Downtown Partnership when it wasn't truly committed to B -- facilitating the growth of SDP into an autonomous organization capable of representing downtown businesses.
(8) Instead, I heard a litany of stories about how City staff undercut, back-stabbed, intimidated, and otherwise undermined the board and staff of Salem Downtown Partnership. I've heard similar anecdotes from other people associated with SDP, which gives this person's rendition of what went on more credibility.
(9) This doesn't mean, as noted before, that Salem Downtown Partnershp didn't have growing pains. It did. The initiators of SDP were businesspeople, not experts in the management of a non-profit organization. But it was the job of City staff to help, not hinder, the growth and development of Salem Downtown Partnership.
Posted by: Brian Hines | May 07, 2016 at 09:00 AM
In attending Neighborhood Associations with Chuck Bennett and paying close attention to what he tells citizens, most of it is "Gee, I can do that for you. I am the one with experience and I know how to get things done". Nobody asks "Chuck, where have you been the past 9 years on council - and why are you acting so interested in doing things for citizens now?" Chuck does not check his facts and misinforms people all the time at debates, forums and meetings. But it is all to improve and embellish his non-record. He claims every good decision from the City as his personal achievement and he act totally surprised when someone brings up a bad outcome from a city decision. I wish he had to run on HIS personal accomplishments outside of this lobby job and council position.
In fact, I have witnessed Chuck continually telling people what they cannot do instead of listening to what they want. Chuck demanded at the NOLA Neighborhood Association that Salem will NEVER have commercial flights at our airport. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER." But, Chuck is a professional lobbyist and a practiced and polished public speaker. People like to hear how he will take care of everything and no one needs worry if he is in charge. Then he deposits $20,000 in his campaign account from the Salem Area Chamber, the Chamber PAC, the Homebuilders PAC, Chamber businesses, and the Realtors PAC. . . . Who do you think he will represent when he is elected?
I
Posted by: Carole | May 08, 2016 at 11:11 AM
Along the line Carole Smith speaks of, I've noticed that often Chuck Bennett brags about making a motion at a City Council meeting to do something positive for Salem. Well, that motion only came about because someone did the groundwork to make it happen.
Usually that wasn't Bennett. He just came on board at the end and made the visible procedural statement to get that something underway.
Anybody can make a motion at a meeting. That doesn't mean much, since the work behind the initiative is what matters.
Posted by: Brian Hines | May 08, 2016 at 11:54 AM
>>Anybody can make a motion at a meeting. That doesn't mean much, since the work behind the initiative is what matters. <<
OUCH!!
Now THERE is some Salem Political Snark!!
:-O
Posted by: Harry Vanderpool | May 08, 2016 at 05:22 PM
Actually, if you look closely at the table of General Obligation Debt, it appears to me that the last payment on the Streets and Bridges Bond measure will not be made until 2028. So the City Recorder might have been mistaken.
Posted by: Jim Scheppke | May 09, 2016 at 08:26 AM
How did you figure that out, Jim? I tried to find a clear indication of when the bonds would be paid off, but was reduced to estimating based on the pace of principal payments, which is complicated to do.
Posted by: Brian Hines | May 09, 2016 at 09:12 AM