Salem Political Snark

Mayor-elect Bennett provides good reasons to vote NO on police facility bond

Thank you, Mayor-elect and current City Councilor Chuck Bennett.

You may have thought that you were stating some reasons to vote "yes" on Measure 24-399, the $82 million police facility bond measure on Salem's November ballot, but actually you made a great pitch for a NO vote.

On August 24 Chuck Bennett appeared on a KYKN talk show hosted by Gator Gaynor and Denise Nanke. Here's a 2-minute audio clip from the show where Bennett talks about the bond measure. 

https://soundcloud.com/user9482943/bennett-on-gator-8-24-16

Those of us who are opposed to the wasteful, poorly-thought-out police facility plan (check out the Salem Can Do Better web site and associated Facebook page) are thrilled that Bennett made such good arguments for voting NO on the bond measure. 

(1) Salem's General Obligation bond tax levy rate will go up by 40% if the police facility bond passes. Wow. That's a lot. Forty percent! I'd thought it was "only" going to be 24%, from $1.01 per $1,000 of assessed value to $1.25.

But Bennett said that the levy rate is scheduled to go down in 2017-18 to .89 per $1,000, and the police facility bond would add .36 to that. So instead of paying .89 per $1,000, Salem property tax payers will be forking out $1.25 per $1,000 if the $82 million police facility bond passes, a 40% increase.

See: Download Police Facility levy analysis

Thus as the bottom half of the City of Salem financial analysis shows, someone with a home assessed at $200,000 would be paying 40% more for the General Obligation Bond Tax if the police facility bond is approved: $250 a year rather than $178, $72 more.

And the $72 isn't just for one year. It's for fifteen years. 

That adds up to $1,080 to pay for a way over-priced and over-sized police facility that is double the cost and size Salem's Mayor and Police Chief said was needed just a few years ago. (Before Chicago consultants came to town and "supersized" the 75,000 to 106,000 square foot recommendation of a local citizen committee all the way up to 148,000 square feet.)

(2) It makes no sense to only move the Police Department to an earthquake-safe building when City Hall, the place they're moving from, will collapse when the "Big One" hits. This is my favorite reason to vote NO on the police facility bond measure.

When the cost doubled to $82 million, this squeezed out the money in a previous Public Safety proposal that was going to make seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library, and build a lower-cost 75,000 square foot police facility -- which the Mayor and Police Chief had said would meet the police department's needs for the next 30 years, with room for growth.

Councilor Bennett spoke about how important it was to keep employees of the Salem Police Department safe. He didn't mention that moving the Department to a new police facility leaves visitors and staff at City Hall and the Library unsafe, including children enjoying Storytime at the Library.

Here's how the interview ended up:

Bennett: I don’t think there’s a person in Salem that won’t say our [Police] Department deserves to be as safe as they can possibly be. And I can just assure you that they are not in their current facility [at City Hall].

Nanke: Just the earthquake. You hear those subduction numbers, and it’s going to happen a little sooner than we thought.

Bennett: Absolutely.

Shameful. 

Chuck Bennett admits that a recently updated study of Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquakes here in the northwest found that these massive (up to 9.0) quakes happen more frequently than was previously thought. And when, not if, the next earthquake happens, the impact will be enormous. 

The death toll could reach as high as 10,000 from the combined earthquake and tsunami should the big one hit, some 85,000 buildings could be damaged and the rebuild costs could top $32 billion.

City of Salem officials, including Bennett, know that two engineering studies of the City Hall and Library showed that the buildings won't survive a Big One earthquake. Yet all Bennett cares about is keeping Police Department employees safe.

Yes, this is important. But equally important is keeping everybody at City Hall and the Library safe -- the goal of those, like me, who are opposed to the current wasteful $82 million police facility plan.

It gives the Police Department way more than even the Mayor and Police Chief originally wanted in a new building, while, as noted before, squeezing out money that previously was going to be used to protect the lives of employees and visitors at the Civic Center.

Salem can't afford a "first class" (Bennett's words) police facility that forces other needs in this town into third or fourth class territory. It is morally wrong to give the Police Department much more than it needs -- the "full meal deal" in the words of city councilor Steve McCoid -- while starving Salem's parks, transit system, library, help for the homeless, bike paths, and such.

Salem can do better. Vote NO on the police facility bond measure, 24-399. After it fails, citizens can work with City officials on a wiser plan, one that gives our Police Department what it needs, but not way more than what it needs. 

Letters to editor trash sleazy Creekside Golf Course water rate deal

Way to go, Lois Stark and Ann Bornholdt! I really like your letters to the editor about the Creekside water rate giveaway that have popped up on the Statesman Journal web site. 

Hopefully your letters (see here and here) will make it into the print edition of the newspaper soon. I'll boldface the most pleasingly snarky portions of what you said.

Salem residents not responsible for golf course's woes

Nice try, Kent Hunsaker and Jerry Bennett, but it ain’t gonna fly!

No matter how much these guys tried to sugarcoat the issue in their guest opinions, lowering the water rates for the Creekside Golf Club amounts to a bailout at the expense of all others in the city of Salem.

The Creekside Golf Club is a private golf course. If it can’t remain solvent, then let their members pay to subsidize it. Why should my water bill increase so they can play golf?

Yes, the golf course is a critical watershed for the city. So if the golf course must close, then let’s either make the course public or have a small development there which carefully protects the natural habitat and wildlife.

If the Salem City Council votes to increase our bills for the Creekside Golf Club members, then I will withdraw 65 cents each month from my bill and urge others to do the same. My hard earned 65 cents will be donated to Marion-Polk Food Share and Family Building Blocks. These two non-profits provide needed services to families who could never afford to play a day of golf.

Lois Stark
Salem

------------------------------
Creekside water rate a sweetheart deal that benefits developer, not city

I hope all members of the Salem City Council — current, ongoing, incoming and potentially future — took note of the overwhelmingly negative response to the proposed increase in water rates for most citizens in order to subsidize a lower rate for a private club.

There is so much wrong with this proposal I can’t keep my objections within the word-count limits of a letter to the editor.

Who the heck are the members of the advisory committee who thought this was a good idea? Suffice to say, I took the opportunity to vote for the challenger in the most recent City Council elections in order to vote against just this kind of sweetheart deal that benefits a well-connected real estate developer at the expense of the rest of the city.

For those concerned with the loss of 50 jobs, it sounds like the developer, Larry Tokarski, is already planning to shut down the golf course to build houses on the site no matter what happens with the proposal.

City Council members: Vote down this turkey!

Ann Bornholdt
Salem

Water rate giveaway to Creekside Golf Course affirmed by City of Salem committee

Oh, goodie! I'm so excited that the Creekside Golf Course water rate scandal, a.k.a IrriGate, is continuing on its special-interest-kiss-up backroom-dealmaking course.

This will give local political junkies like me even more raw material for snarkiness.

When politicians fail to realize their mistakes, doubling-down on a stupid decision, it's entertaining to watch how far down the Rabbit Hole they will go before thinking, "Oh, shit, we should have turned around before hitting the slimy bottom."

Here's a report I've gotten from a reliable source on today's Water-Wastewater Task Force meeting, the group that's been determined to foist a $600,000 water rate increase on other water users so the Creekside Golf Course can get a $60,000 annual water bill reduction that Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett somehow believes is crucial if the private golf course is going to survive.

The Task Force is not backing down on the 30% reduction in rates for “irrigators.” It is going to be worked into the overall rate increase proposal that goes before the Council at a public hearing still scheduled for October 10th [Note: my source had September 10, but that's a Saturday, and previously the word was that the City Council would discuss and vote on this at their October 10 meeting]. Chuck Bennett did ask that the proposal for the Council be provided with and without the 30% reduction for irrigators.

Bennett really got worked up at the end of the meeting about what he sees as unfair criticisms of this. Bennett is now framing it as a flood control issue — Creekside needs the water rate reduction so the golf course remains as a basin for rainwater.

Hopefully the Council is allowed to vote on the 30% reduction issue separately from the rest. Councilor Brad Nanke is already a “no” vote. Councilors McCoid and Bednarz both have actual conflicts of interest and should not vote (McCoid because he is a Creekside homeowner and golf club member, and Bednarz because he is an “irrigator”).

Bennett recused himself from the August 11th vote so you would expect he would do that again (based on the fact that he works for the school administrators association that gets a lot of its revenue from the Salem-Keizer School District, a major irrigator).

That only leaves five. If Councilors Andersen and Dickey vote “no” along with Nanke it will be a 3-3 tie and the motion will fail. That would be interesting.

Here's my previous posts on IrriGate:

Crony capitalism on display in Creekside Golf Course water rate giveaway

Follow the money: Creekside Golf Course "IrriGate" scandal

More disturbing revelations about Creekside Golf Course water scandal

How Salem can save lives and $20 million: vote NO on police facility bond measure

Proponents of the over-priced bond measure on the November ballot for a new 148,000 square foot building to house the Salem Police Department like to say that critics of this poorly-planned proposal, such as me, are totally wrong that it would be feasible to build a perfectly adequate 75,000 square foot police facility -- AND make the Library and City Hall earthquake safe -- for much less money than the $82 million that the current supersized facility would cost all by itself.

Well, in this post I'm going to prove that it's the people who say I'm wrong who are wrong! 

I've written a one page "How to reduce the cost of the $82 million police facility proposal" description of how this can be done. Here's the conclusion:

So about $60 million, or less, buys Salem a perfectly adequate police facility AND seismic upgrades to the Library and City Hall that will save lives when the Big One earthquake hits— rather than spending $82 million just for an over-priced and over-sized police facility.

I encourage you to read the entire paper via this PDF file:  Download How to reduce the cost PDF  

Here's an encapsulation of key points in those 573 words, along with some bonus screenshots. 

What I tried to do is use the City of Salem's own facts and figures as much as possible to prove that Salem Can Do Better -- which is what the campaign for a wiser and less wastefully expensive police facility plan is called. 

In April 2015, the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Police Facility produced its final report. After a bunch of meetings, which included getting expert advice from two consulting firms, the Task Force concluded (see above) that:

The 75 to 106 thousand square foot size range is a "best practices" estimate provided to the Task Force by design and operations experts. We generally agreed that this is the size of building that Salem should be considering given the scope of our operations, program needs, and size of staff.

Now, as I say in my paper, this 75,000 to 106,000 sq.ft. recommendation for the size of a new police facility included a new 911 Center (a.k.a. the Willamette Valley Communications Center), which now is in 10,000 feet of leased space.

So the task force's recommended square footage of the Police Department itself would be no more than 65,000 to 96,000 sq. ft., and possibly considerably less (the current plan is to include a new 25,000 sq. ft. 911 Center in the 148,000 sq. ft. proposed building).

Since the 911 Center is fine where it is for about another ten years, and a City of Salem financial analysis showed that it would take 30 years to break even on the $11 million cost of building a new 911 Center, compared with leasing at the current $144,000 a year, my paper says "Don't build a new 911 Center."

That would reduce the size of the proposed police facility to 123,000 sq. ft., but this is still way too large, since the Task Force recommended 75,000 to 106,000 sq. ft. -- which included a new 911 Center.

Plus, I show in the paper that assuming the past rate of growth of the Salem police force, 1.3 officers per year from 1977 to 2016, there only would be 20% more officers in 2045, while building a 75,000 square foot police facility would double the size of the current 38,000 sq. ft. Police Department, a 100% increase.

This shows that the Task Force and its consultants were correct to recommend a much smaller police facility than the obese 148,000 sq. ft. "full meal deal" (as city councilor Steve McCoid put it).

In fact, the same Chicago consulting firm that later worked with City officials behind closed doors to come up with the supersized 148,000 sq. ft. proposal that went against the recommendation of the Police Facility Task Force told the task force that a 70,000 to 100,000 sq. ft. police facility is what Salem needs.

In the December 2, 2014 minutes of a task force meeting, we learn that two consultants from the DLR Group were asked questions by task force members.

Here is the question where the DLR Group consultants said, "A 70-90,000 or 100,000 square foot facility would be in the range of what we'd expect to see for a [police] department of Salem's size with its complexity of offerings."

But after the DLR Group got a hefty several hundred thousand dollar contract to refine the task force's recommendations, that 70,000 to 100,000 sq. ft. police facility ballooned to 148,000 sq. ft.

(The reason isn't growth in the number of police officers over 30 years; the DLR Group said this only accounts for 8,000 sq. ft. of the 148,000 sq. ft., based on an outrageously large assumed growth of 2.4 officers per year -- about double the 1.3 officer per year historic rate of growth.)

Which is strange.

Another consulting firm, Mackenzie, also met with the task force. Mackenzie has designed 20 police facilities in the northwest, including four in Canby, Keizer, Beaverton, and Albany. The March 11, 2015 minutes of the task force report that the Mackenzie consultants said: "For the current need [in Salem], we would recommend a range of 73,000 - 106,000 square feet."

So I say in my paper that a 75,000 sq. ft. police facility which doesn't include 10,000 to 25,000 sq. ft. for a new 911 Center seems perfectly adequate for Salem. This was the size of the police facility that the Mayor and Police Chief were pushing for in 2014, when a City of Salem FAQ document said:

A right-sized and properly designed Public Safety facility for our community needs to be about 75,000 square feet in size spread over no more than three floors to function best in keeping Salem safe. At this size, the critical functions located in off-site leased spaces can return to a centralized facility with some room for growth over the next 30-40 years.

Thus City officials, and the City's own consultants, previously have agreed with me and other critics of the 148,000 sq. ft. proposal that 75,000 sq. ft. is a proper size for a new Salem police facility. 

I now refer you to the paper I wrote to learn how it would be entirely possible to build a 75,000 square foot facility AND make the Library and City Hall earthquake-safe for $60 million -- saving both lives and about $20 million if voters reject the $82 million bond measure for a supersized police facility alone. 

(In 2017, City officials and the Salem City Council, which will have three newly-elected councilors, can work with Salem's citizens to come up with a better police facility proposal that will be approved by voters.)

The construction cost numbers are sort of complex, so read my paper to find out how, to quote my final words, SALEM CAN DO BETTER.

Download How to reduce the cost PDF

The entire paper is in a continuation to this post if you don't want to download it.

More disturbing revelations about Creekside Golf Course water scandal

OK, Salem's IrriGate scandal isn't Watergate quality, and I'm no Woodward or Bernstein, but this tale of crony capitalism and special-interest deal making at City Hall still is fascinating to dig into and report on.

Following up on Tracy Loew's initial reporting in a Statesman Journal story about how a City of Salem advisory committee voted to recommend that Creekside Golf Course get a $60,000 water rate break, a fellow citizen activist has shared some juicy tidbits with me about how this potential $600,000 giveaway to Creekside and other large irrigators came about. 

(The outrage is magnified by the fact that ordinary water users will have their rates raised to pay for the $600,000 irrigator rate reduction if it is approved by the Salem City Council.)

Below is a transcript this person made of part of the audio recording of the July 14 meeting of the City's Water/Wastewater Task Force. The twelve members include four Salem city councilors: Brad Nanke, Chair; Warren Bednarz; Chuck Bennett; and Jim Lewis.

Peter Fernandez

Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, tells the committee that he met with Steve McCoid, another city councilor, prior to the Task Force meeting. In this "pre-meeting," McCoid came up with another option for giving the Creekside Golf Course a water rate reduction.

McCoid lives in the Creekside development, and is a member of the golf course.

So McCoid's action raises ethical issues, considering that he is lobbying for a rate cut intended to help the golf course stay open, which both helps McCoid continue to play golf right next door, and also would help his home's property value -- since the golf course is an amenity for the Creekside neighborhood where he lives.

Here's what Fernandez told the Task Force at its July 14 meeting. I've boldfaced key parts of what Fernandez said. 

Fernandez: I want to preface by saying that we did lay out some options. This is an issue that came to us really two years ago about the issues relating to the irrigation rate specifically related to the issues out at Creekside. We promised that we would look at it. We’ve laid out the options here. All options have pluses and minuses.

There is one additional piece of information. Councilor McCoid is the Council President and resident at Creekside and member of the [Golf] Club [and] is very interested in this issue. So we had a pre-meeting with him so we could fill him in.

He’s not allowed in the room because then we’d have a quorum. So he’d love to be here but we told him, no no you gotta go. But he came up … in discussing it he [McCoid] came up with another option, we conceptualized another option, where  we perhaps just lower the irrigation rate, the commodity rate a little bit, or some amount, and that actually is an idea beyond these options that actually has legs and we think it might be a very good way to go to address issues, so Deb will talk about that in the sheets, but I just wanna, in the interest of full disclosure, we did some brainstorming — we may have something.

Now, here's what's galling to those of us who value transparency in governmental decision-making.

City staff had prepared discussion papers for issues that the Task Force was going to discuss at the July 14 meeting and subsequent meetings. "Irrigation Cost Relief Options" was item A. I've made a PDF file of just the meeting agenda and this discussion paper. See:
Download WWWTF0714agenda_materials

The Public Works Department staff analysis obviously was prepared prior to the meeting. Also, prior to the pre-meeting Public Works Director Fernandez had with City Councilor McCoid. Only four possible options were listed for "the requested outcome of reducing the cost of irrigation water either to all customers or specifically to Creekside Golf Course." 

(1) Eliminate the Irrigation Classification and reclassify all accounts to a lower-cost classification.
(2) Reclassify Creekside Golf Course as commercial.
(3) Create a Golf Course classification with a reduced irrigation rate.
(4) Maintain the current classification system for now. 

The staff analysis (again, prepared prior to the meeting) didn't recommend any specific option, simply saying that the Task Force should choose one to be the preferred alternative for financial planning and rate proposal development.

But the minutes of the July 14 meeting that were included in a July 28 meeting packet reveal that McCoid's pre-meeting with Fernandez led to a hitherto undisclosed Option #5 being unanimously chosen by the task force for further examination. See:
Download WWWTF 072816 Full Packet

This option was sprung upon the Task Force on the spot by Fernandez, after his sitdown with Creekside Golf Course member McCoid. It maintains the current classification system and reduces the irrigation rate. 

The "Irrigation Cost Relief Options" were edited after the meeting to include Option #5. There's an Estimated Impacts section, and a Considerations section. Of course, at the July 14 meeting where Option #5 was selected by the Task Force, this information wasn't part of the staff analysis. 

Fernandez admitted that Option #5 was brought up by Councilor McCoid just prior to the Task Force meeting. "So what's the big deal?" you might be thinking.

Well, one big deal is that a city councilor who isn't a member of the Task Force, but who lives in the Creekside neighborhood and is a member of the Creekside Golf Course, lobbied the Public Works Director just prior to the Water/Wastewater Task Force meeting to add another option to the four irrigator rate options that City staff had come up with. 

But to my mind, an equally large or larger big deal is what Peter Fernandez publicly said on an August 18 KYKN talk show hosted by Gator Gaynor. 

Fernandez and Gaynor talked about the water rate reduction for Creekside and other irrigators. Public Works Director Fernandez spins how this Option #5 reduction recommendation came to be in a highly misleading manner. Here's a transcript I made of the last part of the interview excerpt that was sent to me by my fellow citizen activist. Click on the audio file to hear the interview excerpt.
Download Peter Fernandez 8:18:16

I've added my comments about what Fernandez says in red. 

Fernandez: We looked at some of the changes that have been experienced in the way people use water, and felt that what we proposed to the task force was supportable from a cost of service methodology. 

Horseshit. You told the task force that Option #5, which was the one selected by the task force, came out of the fertile brain of Councilor Steve McCoid in your pre-meeting with him. 

Again I want to stress, and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity, Gator, that this was done scientifically, it was studying the finances and the way people use water.

No, this was done politically, like so much of what the Public Works Department does under Fernandez' crappy leadership. You did a favor for a city councilor who wanted to give the Creekside Golf Course a $60,000 rate reduction without making it look like this was a special favor for Creekside. 

It just so happened that Creekside gets a break, and it just so happened that Creekside proposed it, but this is not a special deal for Creekside Golf Course.

Actually, it is. Creekside gets a $60,000 a year water rate reduction because Councilor McCoid came up with a way to try to hide the special interest deal by lowering the rate for all irrigators, thereby saddling other water users with a $600,000 additional bill rather than a "mere" $60,000 bill.

Gaynor: That’s good to know, because a lot of people are looking at it as a possible favor for Creekside.

Fernandez: Right. If you want to characterize the favor that we did for Creekside, and I use that term in air quotes, is we looked at it, and showed it to the task force, and said here is something, if you want to recommend it, here’s something you can recommend that makes sense within the cost of service.

So if we did anybody a favor, we looked at it. I guess we could have said, we’re not even going to look at it, you know, forget it, we’re not going to look at it. But there is no favor to Creekside specifically in terms of the change in the irrigation rate. That is a supportable change that will affect the 670 irrigation customer accounts and the 40,000 accounts that are inside the city. Outside the city, the customers aren’t affected.

No favor to Creekside? Give me a f#@king break. Public Works Director Fernandez, you came up with the proposal after your cozy pre-meeting with Steve McCoid. The "we" you speak about wasn't the staff of the Public Works Department. It was you. Only after the task force meeting that followed the pre-meeting was any sort of written staff analysis shared with Task Force members.

I don't understand how Peter Fernandez continues to be the City of Salem Public Works Director. This Creekside episode shows how he operates in a shady, backroom dealmaking way. Just as he did with the 2013 U.S. Bank tree killing debacle that I documented in exquisite factual detail in my "Outrage" report. 

What I said in a 2014 blog post where I released the report sure echoes the Creekside Golf Course scandal today.

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

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

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

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

After Fernandez spoke with the bank president, everything changed. 

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

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

Follow the money: Creekside Golf Course "IrriGate" scandal

In Salem these days, as elsewhere in the U.S., corporate fat cats don't have to carry around bags of cash to surreptitiously hand over to compliant politicians when they want a favor done for them. 

No, our campaign finance systems have gotten so screwed up, rich political donors can do their "bought and paid for" thing right out in the open, pretty much. Their money buys access to politicians, greasing the skids for favorable votes that can't be directly connected to the cash they donated to a campaign fund.

Case in point: Salem's Creekside Golf Course water rate reduction brouhaha. (I'm stealing the term IrriGate for this scandal from a Facebook poster who noted that WaterGate was already taken.)

As noted in my post, "Crony capitalism on display in Creekside Golf Course water rate giveaway," the golf course owners wanted to get a break on their City of Salem water bill, threatening that otherwise Creekside would go out of business, supposedly eliminating 50 jobs.

The City's Water-Wastewater Task Force has obligingly gone along, recommending that Creekside get a $60,000 reduction in its irrigation costs by lowering the rate for all large irrigators in Salem. If this plan is approved by the full City Council in October, a $600,000 hole in the City's water budget will be made up by increasing rates on other customers.

Since, as I said, usually it isn't possible to make a direct connection between (1) a politician's action that favors a big donor to their campaign fund, and (2) the money that the "fat cat" contributed, I'll simply share a (1) and (2) involving IrriGate.

(1) Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett is on board with the Creekside Golf Course getting a water rate reduction.
Bennett, who currently is a city councilor, not taking office as Mayor until 2017, is a member of the Water-Wastewater Task Force.

A Statesman Journal story about the Creekside water rate reduction contains a quote from Mayor-elect Bennett:

Some members of the committee supported Creekside’s request, but balked at extending the deal to all irrigators, which pay the highest of the city’s eight rates.

“It’s not unusual to try to save or to create 50 jobs in this town forgiving taxes for years on end, for doing a whole variety of fiscal gymnastics to get them in,” said City Councilor Chuck Bennett, a committee member. “I’m not sure why in the case of a business like this we wouldn’t do the same kind of thing relative to this cost.”

(2) Larry Tokarski, one of the two owners of the Creekside Golf Course, is linked to a major contribution to Chuck Bennett's campaign fund. 
I wrote about this last May in "Chuck Bennett gets lots of love (and money) from homebuilder PACs." Here's excerpts from that post:

The Oregon Realtors Political Action Committee gave Bennett $5,000. That was topped only by the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, which gave Bennett $7,500. 

Hmmmm. I was surprised by the $7,500 contribution, because at first I naively thought that a group with "affordable housing" in its name was concerned with homelessness, low-income housing, and such.

And I wasn't aware that groups like this had $7,500 to throw at Mayor candidates -- especially Bennett, who isn't known as an avid advocate in this area. Thus my next step was to click on the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition name in the ORESTAR report.

I learned that the people associated with the committee share the address of the Homebuilders Association of Marion and Polk Counties.

In fact, the treasurer of the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, Mike Erdmann, is the CEO of the Marion/Polk Homebuilders Association.

So that cleared up the mystery of the Affordable Housing Coalition. It is the political arm of the Marion/Polk Homebuilders Association.

Given all the concern about homelessness and affordable housing these days, I suspect the homebuilders folks thought Affordable Housing Coalition would sound better than Pave the Planet and Enrich Already Rich Builders PAC. 

Looking through the records of the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, I noticed a big $14,525 contribution to the Coalition from a similarly-named group, Oregonians for Affordable Housing. Also, that the Affordable Housing Coalition had given $5,000 to Salem City Councilor Warren Bednarz' re-election campaign against challenger Sally Cook.

So my next question was, who the heck is Oregonians for Affordable Housing? The name sounded like a big-hearted liberal group dedicated to helping low-income people. Of course, the reality was way different.

Oregonians for Affordable Housing hangs out at an address next door to the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition.

Which turns out to be the address of the Oregon Home Builders Association. So all these cozy political action committee relationships got me making up lyrics to an updated sort of old Beatles song.

"I am Chuck Bennett, who am supported by the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, who am the Homebuilders Association of Marion and Polk Counties, who am supported by Oregonians for Affordable Housing, who am the Oregon Home Builders Association, and we are all one... in Political Action Committee'ness; also, we are the walrus."

Oh, but wait, I'm not quite done, because I'd noticed that the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, a.k.a. the Homebuilders Association of Marion and Polk Counties, had given $7,500 to the Salem Chamber of Commerce's Build Jobs PAC in October 2015.

Naturally I had to click on over to the Build Jobs PAC to see what was happening there. This caught my eye: a $5,000 contribution from Mountain West Investment (the Tokarski company which is building the South Block Apartments on the old Boise Cascade property, a beneficiary of generous tax breaks from the City of Salem). 

On the same day the $5,000 Mountain West contribution came in, April 12, the Build Jobs PAC donated the same amount to the three candidates endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce: Chuck Bennett, Mayor ($3,000); Jan Kailuweit, Ward 1 City Councilor ($1,000); Warren Bednarz, Ward 7 City Councilor ($1,000).

So, yeah, Chuck Bennett is tied into a weird and wacky complicated campaign finance world of homebuilding political action committees who are supporting Chamber of Commerce candidates. There's more, of course -- such as another $5,000 Mountain West contribution to the Build Jobs PAC -- but my brain couldn't handle any more digging into ORESTAR reports.

Complicated stuff. Which is how the "fat cat" class wants it. Make it difficult to connect the dots between (1) and (2), actions by elected officials and big contributions from wealthy political donors. 

As the saying goes, "I've reported, you decide."

(1) Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett is on record as supporting a big water rate reduction for the Creekside Golf Course. The Creekside Golf Course is owned by Larry Tokarski. (2) On the same day Tokarski's Mountain West Investment company gave $5,000 to the Salem Chamber of Commerce's Build Jobs PAC, three candidates endorsed by the Chamber got a total of $5,000. Chuck Bennett got $3,000 of that.

Those are the dots. Feel free to connect them, or not, as you like.

Crony capitalism on display in Creekside Golf Course water rate giveaway

There's so much wrong with the City of Salem's planned $600,000 reduction in water costs for all high-volume irrigators -- a roundabout way of saving the Creekside Golf Course $60,000 a year -- that it almost has a delicious rightness to it. 

Meaning, hopefully this travesty-in-the-making will wake up Salem's citizenry to what has been obvious to those who closely watch goings-on at City Hall.

Crony capitalism is alive and well in Salem, but it should be dead and gone. Here's how Wikipedia describes it:

Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism. Crony capitalism is believed to arise when business cronyism and related self-serving behavior by businesses or businesspeople spills over into politics and government, or when self-serving friendships and family ties between businessmen and the government influence the economy and society to the extent that it corrupts public-serving economic and political ideals.

Thanks to Statesman Journal reporter Tracy Loew, we know what sleazy machinations are going on in the City of Salem's little-known "Water-Wastewater Task Force." Two related August 14 stories tell the disturbing tale.

Here's excerpts from "Creekside Golf Course wins water rate cut"  (a somewhat misleading headline, because the rate cut still has to be approved by the Salem City Council at an October 10 meeting)

Salem’s residential water rates would rise an average of 65 cents per month next year to accommodate a rate decrease for irrigators under a plan approved Thursday by a city water advisory committee.

The deal was reached in response to a request from Creekside Golf Course, the city’s largest irrigator.

Creekside’s owners, developers Larry Tokarski and Terry Kelly, said that without a rate cut, the course would fold, taking about 50 jobs with it.

“The reality is here that if the water rates are not changed significantly, the course will close. That’s a fact,” golf club member Kent Hunsaker told the committee, which advises Public Works Director Peter Fernandez.

Some members of the committee supported Creekside’s request, but balked at extending the deal to all irrigators, which pay the highest of the city’s eight rates.

“It’s not unusual to try to save or to create 50 jobs in this town forgiving taxes for years on end, for doing a whole variety of fiscal gymnastics to get them in,” said City Councilor Chuck Bennett, a committee member. “I’m not sure why in the case of a business like this we wouldn’t do the same kind of thing relative to this cost.”

Wow. Let's do some disentangling of the messy B.S. being reported on here.

The Creekside Golf Course would get a comparatively measly $60,000 a year reduction in its water bill if this Crony Capitalism proposal is approved by the City Council. (See option #5 on page 3 of this staff analysis.)

Yet Creekside owners Larry Tokarski and Terry Kelly, along with their willing City Hall crony, Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett (currently a city councilor), want us to believe that saving $60,000 a year in its irrigation bill will make the difference between keeping the golf course open, and closing it down.

Do Tokarski, Kelly, and Bennett really think Salem citizens are that stupid? Or do they just hope that nobody is paying attention during these lazy days of August? Well, I guess it could be both.

Anyway, crony capitalism has worked well for Tokarski and his Mountain West Investment company before. That's how he got the City Council to give him big tax breaks for developing prime downtown riverfront property. (See my 2014 post, "New City of Salem 'corporate welfare' giveaway to Mountain West Investment.")

Tokarski and other corporate bigwigs in Salem know how to play compliant city officials like the special-interest orchestra that they are. 

Give me a freaking break.

Creekside Golf Course isn't going to go under, taking those 50 jobs with it, just because the City of Salem decides not to save the golf club $60,000 a year on its water bill. Golf is in decline in the United States. Many fewer people are playing golf. Younger people aren't taking up the sport. Lots of golf courses are closing every year. See here and here. Excerpt:

The owner of the course, a development firm named, aptly, Stuck in the Rough, intends to turn the acreage into a residential development, an option available to resorts in prime residential areas. "What else could you do with the place?" Gorski asks. "Golf just didn't work. We couldn't get the young families to come out."

Even before it was shuttered last fall, the Malibu Golf Club decided to cut down drastically on its exorbitant water bill. "They were only watering the tee boxes and the greens," says former club pro Gene Hori. "The good news was you could hit these monster drives, because the fairways were like asphalt and the ball would skip forever."

Well, Malibu must have a smarter City Council than Salem does. Because the recommended water rate reduction for the Creekside Golf Course and other large irrigators will go into effect unless a public outcry stops it. 

What makes the $60,000 a year giveaway to Creekside even more ridiculous is that on the same day the Water-Wastewater Task Force met to recommend the water rate reduction (August 11), several members of Tokarski's team were telling the South Gateway Neighborhood Association about a plan to turn the golf course into a planned development. 

Reporter Tracy Loew told this side of the crony capitalism tale in her "354 homes proposed for Creekside Golf Course property" story.

Salem’s troubled Creekside Golf Club has a new general manager with a plan for turning a profit.

“Every day there’s rumors about Creekside,” said Danny Moore, who replaced general manager Tom Whitaker a month ago. “I’m trying to convince everybody, hey, this place is going to make it.”

At the same time, the property’s owner – developer Larry Tokarski – is moving forward with a plan to turn the entire 18-hole championship course into single-family homes.

On May 27, Tokarski sent the city of Salem a pre-development application for a 156-acre, 354-unit planned development.

“We’ve developed a plan here that represents construction of lots on what is the golf course on those areas we believe can be redeveloped to single family residences,” Mark Grenz, president of Multi/Tech Engineering, told the South Gateway Neighborhood Association on Thursday night.

Tokarski did not attend the meeting, but sent his lawyer, Allen Sorem, and Grenz to talk to the group.

The city encourages developers to meet with neighbors during the application process, Sorem said.

But the 60 or so who turned out were furious, at one point refusing to let the pair make their presentation.

Last April, the neighboring Creekside Homeowners Association filed a lawsuit against the golf club’s owners – Tokarski and developer Terry Kelly – saying they have a contractual obligation to keep the course open.

So it seems obvious that Tokarski is using the threat of closing the golf course, and of building 354 houses on the fairways/greens, to pressure the City of Salem into reducing Creekside's water bill. 

But the end of Loew's story shows how skeptical City officials and citizens in general should be of the $60,000 crony capitalism rate reduction (which turns into a $600,000 rate increase for non-irrigators after all is said and done).

“We’re a month or more out before we have enough information to finalize our [housing development] application and get it ready to go,” Grenz said.

In the meantime Moore, the club’s general manager, said he is working on increasing the club’s revenue, including booking events through 2017, while cutting down payroll.

“I’m showing two smart businessmen, hey, this can work out,” Moore said. “They’re smart men and they’re going to make their own decision.”

Outrageous. 

The Creekside Golf Course already is laying people off, at the same time Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett and other gullible city officials are claiming that the paltry $60,000 a year rate reduction for Creekside will save 50 jobs.

And golf course manager Moore makes clear in his final quote that Tokarski and Kelly, the Creekside owners, haven't made a commitment to keep the golf course open. They could get their $60,000 a year water rate reduction, benefit from it for a few years, and then close the course -- making it into a housing development. 

Like I said, Salem citizens/voters need to wake up and smell the City Hall crony capitalism that is taking money out of the pockets of this town's version of our 99% and making the 1% like Tokarski and Kelly even more rich and powerful.

Secretiveness of Salem City officials reflected in embarrassing email

Almost everybody has mistakenly sent out an email that had a regrettable something in it. City of Salem officials have joined this large club, as KATU reported in "'Kind of embarrassing': Salem authorities send email with note not meant for public."

SALEM, Ore. -- An official with the city of Salem admits it's "kind of embarrassing."

The city sent out an email alert that included a footnote the public was not supposed to see.

The footnote is regarding whether to tell the public about the cost of a road project in downtown Salem.

...Gotterba said the budget information he released to KATU Thursday is available through a public records request but also admitted it was not included in either of the two news releases put out about the project.

Here's a KATU video story about the downtown bike paths email embarrassment.

 

 A Salem Breakfast on Bikes post, "Controversy over cost of downtown bike lanes is unwarranted," correctly observes that what is most concerning about the email is how City of Salem officials are worried about whether citizens will think that a much-needed $244,000 downtown bike lane project is too expensive, but are proud of their hugely wasteful Billion Dollar Third Bridge and $82 Million Police Facility projects.

A footnote meant for internal communication only was not edited out of a public message on the bike lanes for High and Church Street, and it doesn't look very good. Especially in light of the proposals to overbuild a new Police Station and overbuild a giant new highway and bridge across the Willamette River, it seems to feed a narrative of an out-of-control and secretive city.

The truth in this case is the opposite.

Construction costs might be higher than we like, but relative to industry norms, the City of Salem routinely brings in small road construction projects under budget. The costs from the 2008 road bond projects came in about 80% of budget and by adding a bunch of smaller projects, the City was able to add by count of projects another 50%. Sure, much of this was during the Great Recession, but the facts are that the City is not profligate on small and medium-sized road projects.

The project for bike lanes for Church and High is no different.

Yet the staff person's mistakenly-shown note says about construction of the bike paths, "People might see it as a very expensive project."

No, they won't. People love bike paths. Salem's citizens want more bike paths. And not just a few disconnected blocks of them. They want an interconnected system throughout our city of bike paths, bike boulevards, and multiuse paths.

This can be built for hugely less money than autocentic road improvements cost. So the real embarrassment in the City of Salem's email isn't that officials were trying to hide the cost of the bike paths from the public, but that they felt a need to do so -- which shows a lack of commitment to building better cycling/pedestrian infrastructure in this town.

Oh, there's one other thing that City officials should be embarrassed about.

In the KATU video, City spokesperson Mike Gotterba says that 3 to 5 managers approved the email before it was sent out. Um, this doesn't sound very efficient to me. One manager's review sounds sufficient to me.

But it is well known that the Mayor Peterson administration is highly secretive and controlling.

Thus it isn't at all surprising that the folks at City Hall debated how open and transparent they should be about the $244,000 cost of the downtown bike paths. This is disturbing. What's even more problematic is that City officials are so wary of the comparatively low cost of making Salem streets more bike and pedestrian friendly.

The Breakfast on Bikes post says:

A typical enhanced crosswalk with a pedestrian refuge median (no flashing beacon) is in the neighborhood of $50,000 or $60,000 - the same amount the SRC [Salem River Crossing, or Third Bridge] is spending on average each month. Imagine, well over 100 medians for walking safety!

By this measure, the cost for 10 or 12 (it's actually 14+) blocks of downtown bike lane and parking reconfiguration is proportional.

When the Glen Creek/Wallace interchange cost around $10 million, this project on Church and High only costs about 2% of that total. Again, is this really so out of proportion?

Third Bridge opponents and supporters have very different visions for Salem

I came away from last night's City Council meeting highly encouraged about the future of Salem.

Sure, the immediate outcome was discouraging: a 6-2 vote to move ahead with an expansion of the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) to accommodate what I like to call the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, a third vehicular bridge across the Willamette that is unneeded, unwanted (by most people), and unpaid-for. 

Councilors Tom Andersen and Diana Dickey voted against the UGB expansion. Councilor Jim Lewis was absent. That left Mayor Anna Peterson and Councilors Chuck Bennett, Steve McCoid, Daniel Benjamin, Warren Bednarz, and Brad Nanke on the "Yes" side.

Which will be remembered come election time in May 2018. Mayor-elect Bennett (who currently is the Ward 1 councilor), McCoid, and Benjamin will be up for re-election if they choose to run again.

Based on how many more people testified against the Third Bridge UGB expansion last night, versus the small number in favor, every local elected official in favor of the Billion Dollar Boondoggle has a big metaphorical target on their back.

Along with lots of other Third Bridge opponents, last night I had something different on my back. And front. A No 3rd Bridge t-shirt.

There were a few people wearing pro-Third Bridge t-shirts. But the big difference between those who testified for and against the bridge during the public comment period wasn't their apparel. 

It was their vastly different visions for Salem. 

Supporters of the Third Bridge wanted to keep this town dominated by the automobile. They couldn't come up with any reason for spending a billion dollars on another way to get across the Willamette except the unconvincing sometimes I'm caught in congested traffic on the two existing bridges.

Their dream was to have cars and trucks freely zipping across the river.

But otherwise, I didn't get any sense that they had a compelling vision for what lay on the west and east banks of the Willamette. For them it was all about getting somewhere as fast as possible. What that somewhere was seemed unimportant to them. 

Supporters of the Third Bridge are stuck in a 1950s mentality: freeways, sprawl, strip malls, suburbia, asphalt and concrete replacing nature because... well, that's growth. I wrote about this a few years ago in one of my Strange Up Salem columns, "Up to the Present, Salem."

Salem needs an anti-time machine that will let us experience what’s happening now, not the past or future. Here’s a mantra Salem’s Mayor, City Manager, councilors, and other city officials should repeat: “Up to the present, 2014 or bust.”

Imagine you’re a business owner, family, or individual thinking about relocating to Oregon. You’re looking for a with-it city that’s committed to creative, cutting-edge policies, a town focused on improving quality of life and promoting vitality by embracing positive trends instead of resisting them.

These days standing still isn’t an option. The times always have been a’changing, but now changes are accelerating. Anyone — city, corporation, citizen — who doesn’t recognize how important it is to adjust to new realities will be left behind.

Unfortunately, living in Salem feels like being stuck in quicksand while watching everyone around you run happily by. This town makes a habit of being the last to get the memo about where the world is heading.

Opponents of the Third Bridge had a much more optimistic and forward-looking vision for Salem. Person after person came to the podium and spent their three minutes of public testimony time talking about...

-- The need to protect the dozens of homes and businesses that are in the path of the proposed Third Bridge and its on-ramps/off-ramps. An entire recently-built subdivision in West Salem is under the cloud of the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, reducing property values and scaring homeowners who don't want their neighborhood destroyed in the name of illusory "progress."

-- How making the two current vehicular bridges earthquake-safe and improving their approaches would solve congestion problems while being vastly less expensive and disruptive than building a whole new bridge in a less desirable location (the Third Bridge would be in an earthquake liquefaction zone, unlike the existing bridges). 

-- Focusing on making Salem much more bike and pedestrian friendly, with a modern mass transit system. The Union Street pedestrian bridge between West Salem and downtown is heavily used already. Adding a Salemtowne to Downtown multi-use trail parallel to Wallace Road would encourage more commuting by bicycle and foot at very little cost. Several knowledgeable people testified that this can be done without expanding the UGB, contrary to what City officials are wrongly saying. 

-- The undeniable reality of global warming and the need to markedly reduce greenhouse gas emissions strongly argues against an archaic "pave it over" mentality that's out of touch with the 21st century. An environmental activist challenged the City Council to do the right thing, the Green thing, the think-about-our-children-and-grandchildren thing.

-- How young people are moving away from Salem to cities that offer the sort of lifestyle favored by most Millennials: mixed-use neighborhoods where it isn't necessary to drive to work, restaurants, grocery stores and such; safe bike paths for people of all ages, connected in a network that makes it possible to use pedal-power rather than gas-power to get around; a vibrant downtown rather than sterile sprawling autocentric suburban streets devoid of people.

The Third Bridge is an idea whose time has long since passed.

Sadly, a majority on Salem's City Council, including the current Mayor (Anna Peterson) and the Mayor-elect (Chuck Bennett) are stuck in the aforementioned 1950s mentality, failing to recognize the reality of the present moment. 

Salem's citizens want this town to embrace a better future, not an unworkable past.

This was evident last night, as many more people testified against the archaic Third Bridge with passion, clarity, and facts, compared to the handful of bridge proponents who raised the same tired old arguments of sometimes I sit in traffic for 15 or 20 minutes waiting to cross the river.

I loved what Cara Kaser said at the City Council meeting.

She is the newly elected Ward 1 councilor (taking office in 2017) replacing Chuck Bennett. During her campaign this year, Kaser spoke with hundreds of people who live near downtown. Almost all of them opposed the Third Bridge. 

Kaser testified that her constituents want the existing bridges to be fixed. They don't want a new one, feeling like their neighborhood is treated too much like a highway already. Compellingly and honestly, Kaser said "It should take longer than 5 minutes to get across the river."

Meaning, a town that puts people above cars doesn't prioritize fast-moving vehicles above human quality of life. One day soon, I dearly hope, Salem will have a Mayor and City Council majority who recognize the wisdom of this.

Treasurer of pro-police facility PAC accused of bankruptcy fraud

Lovers of irony will adore this news: Carol Russell, the treasurer of a Political Action Committee (PAC) formed to support the City of Salem's $82 million police facility bond measure on the November ballot, was accused of bankruptcy fraud in 2015. 

[UPDATE: after writing this post, I asked Banner Bank for the current status of their lawsuit against Russell. I heard back: "Banner Bank voluntarily dismissed defendants Allen J. Russell and Carol A. Russell, on July 7, 2015.  Today, there’s no pending suit."]

So reported the Portland Oregonian in "Longtime Coos County cranberry growers accused of filing bankruptcy to avoid paying off $700,000 in loans."

Banner Bank is accusing a Coos County family of creating a shell company to keep selling cranberries while declaring personal bankruptcy in order to get out of paying $743,844 in loans.
 
The bank filed a lawsuit Jan. 6, saying Allen and Carol Russell, the third generation of a Bandon cranberry-farming family, defaulted on two loans and filed bankruptcy under the Russell Cranberry Company name, without ever mentioning they had created Bandon Cranberry Company LLC to continue selling cranberries.
 
The lawsuit said the Russells did so "as part of a shell game to hinder, delay and defraud the bank."

Carol Russell is treasurer of the Keep Salem Safe PAC. It's purpose is to be "In favor of Measure M24-399," the $82 million police facility bond measure that is being opposed by a PAC I've formed, Salem Can Do Better.

(We have a Facebook page; give us a like.)

The Oregon Outpost blog put up a post that revealed Carol Russell's connections with many mostly-Republican/conservative PACs. Here's an excerpt from "Prominent Republican campaign treasurer accused of bankruptcy fraud." Note: I counted up the current number of PAC's Russell is treasurer of. She's gone from 97 in 2015 to 119 today, including the Keep Salem Safe PAC.

Why this is a political story is because Carol Russell is also one of the most prolific Treasurers for Republican political campaigns and PAC’s and Ballot measures.  In Oregon, all political committees and campaigns must designate a Treasurer who is required to keep the records for contributions and expenditures (C&E’s) for the committee, and to file the reports with the Secretary of State. These reports are posted on ORESTAR, the state reporting website.

A search of ORESTAR by Treasurer shows that as of today, there are 97 campaigns and committeesthat list Carol Russell as their Treasurer. Some of those committees and PAC’s are most likely inactive currently, but many are still active, and Ms. Russell is still their Treasurer.

While many people face the prospect of bankruptcy, sometimes through no fault of their own  sometimes because they become overextended in business or personally, very few then proceed to conceal major assets. And even fewer attempt as the Russels did to conceal virtually their entire business, in order to avoid paying their lawful debts.

The Candidates and Boards to whom campaign Treasurer Russell reports may want to consider how to evaluate Ms. Russell’s role in their organizations.

It seems strange that supporters of City of Salem ballot measure 24-399 felt they needed to have a woman from Bandon, about 200 miles away, be the treasurer of the PAC.

Hey, I'm the treasurer of the Salem Can Do Better PAC that's opposing 24-399.

When I've testified at Salem City Council meetings against the wasteful, poorly-thought-out $83 million police facility plan ($1 million in road improvements would be paid out of urban renewal funds, so the bond measure asks for $82 million), a couple of councilors have questioned how I can oppose the bond measure when I don't live in the Salem city limits.

Well, I have a Salem address. I've lived in the Salem area for 39 years, 13 years within the city limits, 26 years a few miles outside. My wife and I likely will move back into town when our ten acres get to be too much for us retired folks to handle. Almost all of our local connections are with Salem: friends, shopping, civic activism, entertainment, dining, exercising, etc.

So I'm pleased that supporters of the police facility bond measure who formed the Keep Salem Safe PAC chose an out-of-town (way out-of-town) person to be the Treasurer. I'm hugely more connected with Salem than Carol Russell is. Plus, I've never been accused of bankruptcy fraud, which seems like a good quality for someone who handles money other people contribute to a cause.

Today the Statesman Journal reported "Salem Chamber endorses police facility bond." Almost certainly, the Keep Salem Safe PAC led by Bandon resident Carol Russell will be the vehicle for collecting contributions for the vote yes campaign. 

The endorsement was announced on the chamber's public policy blog. The blog post, written by operations director Nick Williams, said the business group's board of directors "overwhelmingly approved" an endorsement of the bond measure at its July meeting.

Williams wrote that the chamber will assemble "a broad coalition" to campaign in favor of the bond.

Well, that broad coalition seems to have a lock on the category of Oregon coast cranberry farmers moonlighting as Republican PAC operatives who have been accused of bankruptcy fraud.

But I and others involved with Salem Can Do Better never intended to target this demographic in our VOTE NO campaign. So I'll cede it to the Chamber of Commerce folks.

For five good reasons to vote No on Measure 24-399, and one bonus reason, check out our web page. (click below)