Salem Political Snark

Salem subdivision gone wrong: City staff ignore horrendous screw-ups

This is a disturbing tale of how City of Salem officials have allowed a subdivision developer to trample the rights of neighbors, while ignoring two women's requests to explain how repeated screw-ups keep happening. 

The subdivision is Sabre Ridge Estates, off of Sunnyside Road in south Salem. The women are Lisa Basalto and her mother, Lynn. Lisa wrote to me several weeks ago, looking for someone to help with her extremely frustrating situation. Below I've shared her story, along with some related photos and videos. 

Last Thursday I went to the Basalto home. I've shared some of the photos I took during my visit at appropriate places in her email message, along with two videos the Basaltos made of the flooding caused by poor construction practices and erosion control measures.

What Lisa and her family have gone through is infuriating. But what makes her experience even more disturbing is how it is echoed in a story in the current issue of Salem Weekly, "Repeated favoritism claimed for local developer." Here's an excerpt:

For more than a year, Easterly says, he has attempted to learn from the City of Salem the reasons behind the exceptions given Fry [developer of a subdivision in West Salem]. He describes meeting with frustration from officials who will neither concede nor explain the favoritism he had documented. “Efforts were made to answer my questions,” he says, “until such time that staff sensed my questions were challenging their ‘official’ view.

He says he’s felt ‘heard’ – “as well as avoided.”

“I’m an i-dotter and a t-crosser,” he told Salem Weekly. “I don’t mind if you want to change the rules. But if you don’t change the rules – you should play by them.”

Something sure seems to be amiss at City Hall -- especially, the Public Works Department headed up by Peter Fernandez.

I readily admit that I'm not a Fernandez fan (to put it mildly), having documented the favoritism and backroom dealmaking he engaged in with U.S. Bank President Ryan Allbritton during the 2013 State Street tree removal debacle. Since, I've heard credible reports that Fernandez meets regularly with Salem's largest developers to discuss how the City can help them achieve their money-making plans as smoothly as possible.

So when I heard about what the Basaltos has gone through, I thought "Sad, but not surprising; ordinary citizens regularly get screwed-over by City of Salem officials who care a lot more about pleasing the Powers That Be in this town than complying with governmental regulations and ethical norms."

Mayor Anna Peterson, Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett, City Manager Steve Powers, and Salem's eight city councilors need to start kicking some butt at City Hall, stopping the outrageous way Lisa has been treated by City officials, which I'm confident happens to many other ordinary citizens who don't get the white glove treatment extended to developers with lots of money and power.

Here's what Lisa told me in her first message. Hopefully her horrible experience won't go in vain. I've boldfaced passages that struck me as meriting special attention.

Hi Brian, I hope you don't mind me reaching out to you like this. I have enjoyed reading your blog, particularly about the issues of corruption in Salem's City Hall and Planning Commission, because it feels like one of the only places on the internet where my own frustrations are being reflected.

I moved to Salem about three years ago with my family. We live in a roughly 30-year-old home on Cinnamon Hill Drive in Southeast Salem, which backs up to a property on Sunnyside Road that is now being developed. At the time we bought the house, we were unaware that this property was going to be developed. Directly behind us was a large house on acreage, and adjacent to that property was a Christmas tree farm.

Alongside our property line was a private road/driveway which serviced both the house directly behind us and an older house, built in the 1920s, that has a working farm attached to it. Lining the driveway are 100-year-old white oak trees, zig-zagging our property with some trees inside our property line and some just outside it; and there used to be some beautiful fir and wild cherry trees as well (the “used-to-be” should give you an indication about how “fun” this story is going to be).

When we moved in, we didn't realize that, apparently, the owner of the house behind us and of the Christmas tree farm was planning on turning his property into a housing development, and had been entangled in a dispute with all our neighbors for years because of it. Since around 2007, our neighbors and the owners of the 1920s house had been fighting to try to save the oak trees and a number of other magnificent trees on the property. Though they managed to save some, hundreds of trees have been cut down.

Work on the development started in April of last year and it has been an uphill battle with the city and the developers (Mountain West, Multi Tech Engineering and Wind River Homes) to get any kind of information what is happening. The only plans that are on file with the city are out-of-date and are not being adhered to, but when we contact the city, they shrug and re-refer us to those same plans.

Over Labor Day weekend, a tree service came out and cut down a number of trees that had been marked for conservation according to a letter we received from the city in October 2015. Additionally, they cut major limbs off every white oak tree (all of which were marked for conservation), potentially endangering the lives of the trees. I went out with the letter from the city to try to stop them before they cut down a massive, several-hundred-year-old fir tree, but they shrugged and said even though the letter from the city did seem to indicate that tree should be saved, they couldn’t go against their orders.

Since it was Labor Day weekend, I’m sure you can imagine how much luck we had getting anyone from the city involved. By the time we got contact with anyone, the trees were long gone – and the city planner didn’t even care, anyway.

Losing so many trees was absolutely devastating... But compared to the bizarre reshaping of the land they are up to now, it almost feels inconsequential. A few days after the tree-cutting fiasco, they tore down the house on acreage directly behind our property (which was indicated on the original plans approved by the city, the ones the city planner continually refers us to, as remaining and becoming part of the new neighborhood) with no permit on file.

Lisa showing me the giant artificial hill

They then graded down the hill that the house was built on and used the loose red dirt to grade up an artificial hill directly behind our house. There is now a 20-foot artificial hill on the south side of the private road. Nothing was done to mitigate water run-off – previously there had been a drainage ditch and a culvert as this was a flood-prone area, but they filled in that ditch and did not create a drain or any other means to divert water.

We contacted the city to express our concerns about this about a month ago. We got a hand-wave.

Video of the artificial hill collapsing

Over this last weekend, when the torrential rain hit, a large section of the artificial hill collapsed. Four feet of mud slid down and caked both the driveway and our next-door-neighbor’s backyard. Our neighbors who live in the 1920s house were trapped in their house during a massive storm. When they tried to leave the next day, their car got stuck and it took almost three hours for Triple-A to get them out.

Video of the subdivision-caused flooding of Lisa's house

Additionally, our backyard and the lower part of our house were flooded. A two-foot-deep river of water and mud rushed through our backyard like white-water rapids. The crawl space under our house is full of water damage now.

We called Salem Public Works and an Environmental Compliance Officer came out and said this was one of the most egregious cases of lack of erosion control he had ever seen. He said the city is notoriously flippant about addressing erosion and more concerned about rubber-stamping every proposed development.

Gravel/rock has been put on the eroded artificial hill

The excavation company that did the grading finally came out to check on the landslide yesterday. Their solution was to throw gravel at everything – even though there was still standing water on the driveway, they did nothing to drain it. It was at least a foot deep yesterday afternoon.

The only thing keeping it from running into our yard and our next-door neighbors’ was a patch of gravel holding their erosion tarp in place. Our neighbors in the 1920s house are, I can only assume, trapped again, because the water looks much too deep to safely drive through. And, of course, the next time a big storm blows in, since they only reinforced the part of the hill that broke, the rest of the hill is prime to give out.

When we contacted the city planner we’d been in touch with about this latest fiasco this morning, he told us to stop contacting him. So that’s it. Our house is now in a major flood and landslide zone, one artificially created that did not exist as a threat before this summer, and the city is not interested in doing anything about it.

Giant artificial hill may be extended over the access road

That’s why I’m reaching out to you. Our neighbors in the 1920s house have been told that the developer is planning on expanding the artificial hill and taking away their driveway, giving them an alley through the development instead. If the hill is built closer to our properties, the landslide risk becomes even greater as it takes away the small buffer the road provided.

The white oak trees, already injured by the massive limb removal, will be in even more danger. If houses are built on the artificial hill, they will likely collapse in addition to the mud. And there is nothing in the plans for water management, so the water has nowhere to go except our yard, which is now the lowest point.

Our trees, our property and possibly our lives are in danger if they truly are planning on following through with this plan – and since the city has abandoned us and refuses to give us any information, we have no way of knowing if or when this will happen. Since you have dealt with this sort of thing before, if you have any advice or at least are willing to raise awareness about it, I would very greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much!

After I asked Lisa some questions about the tree removals she mentions, I got a reply that said, in part:

As you can see, much of our information in this entire affair has been word of mouth, which is leaving us in a he-said, she-said situation. This is part of the reason we are so frustrated and why I reached out to you to begin with.

If the city and the developer would be forthcoming with information and willing to answer our questions, we would be more inclined to let things go. But there is nothing on the public record except the exceptionally out-of-date plans from 2013 that we can see with our own eyes are not being followed.
Download SUB13-02 & UGA06-18A Decision 

The plans that the city and developers continually refer us to (when they respond at all) have no information about the fake hill behind our house, nothing about a retention pond or settling pond, nothing about demolishing the house that was supposed to be on Lot 137. They show houses behind us on natural ground level, not perched 25 feet over our heads on a poorly graded hill made of loose red dirt.

These changes are matters of great concern to us, but when we ask directly we are evaded or ignored. If they would answer our questions, we would let things go. But when they give us the runaround, we have no way of planning or anticipating or preparing ourselves. This is why we are angry.

Me too, Lisa. 

If you are also, let the Mayor, City Manager, city councilors, and other City of Salem officials know how you feel: email them at [email protected]

Statesman Journal staff stunned by theft of their opinions

UPDATE, a note to the humor-impaired: it seemed pretty damn obvious to me that the notion of opinions being removed from the minds of newspaper staff through a supernatural means fell into the genre of SATIRE. But a few reactions from people on social media indicates that some are taking this post seriously. Which makes me wonder: has someone removed a sense of humor from the minds of certain readers of this blog? I may need to expand the reach of this story...

Breaking news: I'm hearing reports that staff at the Statesman Journal newspaper in Salem, Oregon are shellshocked by the abrupt absence of opinions from their psyches.

When asked to confirm this, Ryan Kedzierksi, President of Statesman Journal Media, said "I don't know what to say. Like everybody else here, I don't have an opinion... not just about this, about everything."

Evidence that opinions have disappeared from the minds of the 32 remaining staff at the newspaper has been accumulating since the sudden firing of Editorial Page Editor Dick Hughes last Tuesday. 

Since, the Statesman Journal has had no opinion section on three days, and merely a collection of letters to the editor on one day. No pieces by national or local columnists. No editorials or other opinions written by newspaper staff.

My sources are telling me that suspicion is falling on Hughes, who may have more magical powers than was previously suspected. Many readers of Statesman Journal editorials have wondered how Hughes conjured up conclusions from an absence of facts, but this did not involve the sort of supernaturalism now suspected to be in Hughes' bag of journalistic tricks.

"Newspaper staff suspect that somehow Dick Hughes deleted the capacity to opinionate from the minds of all remaining Statesman Journal staff," I was told by a highly anonymous source. "Of course, they don't feel strongly about this, because they no longer can feel strongly about anything, lacking opinions."

Subscribers who have been wondering, Where's the damn opinion section? I'm not getting my money's worth!, now have a plausible explanation for the absence of a significant part of the newspaper -- especially for anyone who embraces the possibility that a disgruntled ex-Editorial Page Editor could remove the capacity to opinionate from the minds of remaining Statesman Journal staff.

Whether this is part of a plan by Hughes to get his job back, or just spite, is unknown. Stay tuned to Salem Political Snark for updates on this breaking story. 

We'll do our best to figure out why, with less than two weeks before Election Day, nobody at the Statesman Journal has been able to manage an Opinion Section after the Editorial Page Editor was laid off -- not the remaining members of the editorial board, nor anybody else. 

Appealing proposal to save North Campus historic buildings rejected by City/State officials

Here we go again... the City of Salem and the State of Oregon are doing something incredibly stupid. Yeah, I know, this isn't shocking news. Government officials are notorious for making bad decisions.

In Salem, for example, the Mayor and her current City Council majority have laid plans to build an unneeded half billion dollar Third Bridge requiring $1.50 each-way tolls (on the two current bridges also) and want taxpayers to fork out $82 million for a vastly over-priced police facility that costs twice as much per square foot as it should.

Oregon state government operates under the shadow of hundreds of millions of dollars wasted in the Cover Oregon fiasco, and revelations that many millions in alternative energy tax breaks were wrongly handled by bureaucrats.

So one would think that the City and State would do their best to avoid embarrassing screw-ups on the redevelopment of the State Hospital's North Campus. The State of Oregon wants to sell this property, and the City of Salem wants to see it converted into productive property-tax-generating uses.

Thus it is really strange that the State of Oregon's Department of Administrative Services has rejected an offer from 14 Willamette Valley business people that would:

 -- Save 400,000 square feet of historic buildings on Oregon State Hospital North Campus
--  Save the State of Oregon $8.3 million from demolition of those buildings
--  Create hundreds of new jobs
--  Put over $150 million of new structures on the property tax rolls, which will benefit all taxing districts in the Salem-Keizer area
--  Be an “incubator,” enabling economic development.

This information comes from an October 7 press release whose contact person is Alex Rhoten of Coldwell Banker Commercial Mountain West Real Estate. 
Download North Campus press release

The proposal sure sounds damn appealing. Here's what follows the above "bullet points" in the press release.

The group’s proposal is for 47 acres of the property including buildings known as “The Dome” and “Yaquina Hall.” Analysis indicates that the buildings are structurally sound and are suitable for office/classroom/apartment space. A number of potential tenants have expressed interest in the redesigned space.

The Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) has been considering plans for the property, most regrettably including demolition of the site. The group believes this isn’t necessary and wants to encourage political officials to consider an alternative plan. Their plan would include preservation of historic buildings, while creating new housing, stimulating educational programs and enabling new retail space.

Alex Rhoten, commercial real estate broker with Coldwell Banker Mountain West Real Estate sees the project as an economic development opportunity for Salem and the Valley. “The chance for Salem and the surrounding areas to provide hundreds of new jobs as well as much needed housing is something that can’t be missed. To demolish the current structures for some limited, low income housing doesn’t provide nearly the value and is extraordinarily shortsighted,” said Rhoten.

According to engineers and architects, the site has over 500,000 square feet of structurally sound buildings, of which a significant percentage can be put into productive use in about one year. Additional new buildings totaling over 600,000 square feet will also be built.

Rhoten added that few development opportunities, regardless of the location, would provide Salem with economic development, new jobs, new affordable housing options, recreational areas and desirable retail space as fast as this North Campus project could produce. This will be the largest development project in Salem since the Lancaster Mall was built in 1971.

It seems like a no-brainer for government officials to seriously consider this proposal.

The public also should be asked to weigh in on it, especially considering that the dubiously-wise current plan is for the state Department of Administrative Services to borrow $8.3 million from other parts of its budget to pay for demolishing the North Campus buildings that the Alex Rhoten group wants to save and put to productive uses.

As reported in the Statesman Journal story, "State may go over budget on State Hospital revamp," DAS is just trying to break even with the sale of the property. Meaning, I assume, the State of Oregon would need to find someone willing to pay at least $8.3 million more for the North Campus acreage without 400,000 square feet of demolished buildings.

Yet Rhoten's group is willing to buy the property with those buildings -- which, as the press release says, would save the State of Oregon $8.3 million.

So why is this deal getting so little attention from government officials at the state and local level?

From what I've heard, outgoing Salem Mayor Anna Peterson flat-out rejected it, saying the City of Salem would never approve a plan that creates hundreds of new jobs and puts over $150 million worth of new buildings on the property tax rolls.

Why? I guess you'll have to ask Mayor Peterson. 

But since she's out of office in a few months, a better question is, "Why the hell is Peterson seemingly getting veto power over a project that would greatly benefit Salem, especially since she is a very short-term Mayor?"

And here's another great question: Whatever happened to the vaunted Collaboration Capital that Mayor Peterson loves to talk about?

Fourteen Willamette Valley business people submit a proposal to redevelop the North Campus in a way that preserves 400,000 square feet of historic buildings, along with constructing 600,000 square feet of new buildings, and this idea is never even discussed by the City Council or brought forth for public discussion? 

If you think it's dumb for government officials to spend more than $8 million demolishing buildings that a group of local business people want to save, then to hope to sell the bare land for twice what it is worth in order to recoup the demolition cost (I've heard that the assessed land value of the North Campus is $8 million), share your thoughts with Salem's Mayor/City Council and Governor Kate Brown:

[email protected]

Governor Brown's "Share Your Opinion" web page

Mayor-elect Bennett doesn't understand Third Bridge approval process

It's a big deal when Salem's Mayor-To-Be appears to be clueless about what needs to happen before a plan for the proposed $430 million Third Bridge across the Willamette can be approved by the Federal Highway Administration.

Chuck Bennett takes office in January 2017.

Hopefully he will educate himself in the next few months about the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and what is required before a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement can be given a thumbs-up by the Federal Highway Administration.

Today the No 3rd Bridge folks put up a post called "The Mayor-elect does not understand the NEPA process."

Judging by his remarks on the radio a couple weeks back, our Mayor-elect does not understand what the Federal Highway Administration requires in order to approve a Final Environmental Impact Statement. According to the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) the FHWA needs a detailed design plan, along with a credible financing plan.

The Mayor-elect thinks we can get the FHWA to approve the current half billion dollar plan that is funded about 40% with tolls on both the old and new bridges, and then change our mind and design a smaller bridge that doesn't require tolling. Wrong. You can't do that Mr. Mayor-elect. That would be a bait and switch. The NEPA does not allow that.

If you want a smaller bridge that is not funded with tolls you need to modify the plan now, including the funding plan, before you send it in to the FHWA. Or you can attempt the bait and switch approach, and see if you get caught. Those are your choices.

I listened to the two-minute interview with Bennett on KYKN radio. At about the 55 second mark, Mayor-elect Bennett said this:

As part of the Environmental Impact Statement, there had to be put together a plan that says if we get the OK, we could find a way to pay for this [Third Bridge]. Well, in a theoretical world, with a theoretical bridge, you could theoretically pay for it with tolls. The problem with that theoretical world is, that's not Salem, Oregon. And we're not going to build a bridge financed by tolls in Salem, Oregon.

Wow. 

It looks to me like Mayor-elect Bennett has just done a big favor to opponents of the Third Bridge by undermining the credibility of the Recommended Funding Strategy for the Salem River Crossing (official name of the Third Bridge). This financial plan is a requirement before the Federal Highway Administration will approve an Environmental Impact Statement.

Here it is (click to enlarge):

The biggest chunk of money to pay for the $430 million bridge is supposed to come from tolling the bridge, along with the two existing vehicular bridges -- $1.50 each way. This supposedly would raise $175 million. 

Now, I readily admit that I'm no expert in the arcane art of how the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) operates. But some Googling leads me to believe that the No 3rd Bridge folks are correct: Chuck Bennett doesn't understand how the approval process works. 

A "FHWA Financial Plan Guidance" document says that you can't just make stuff up about how a $430 million bridge is going to be paid for. If you want to get federal assistance, and the Third Bridge funding strategy is counting on $40 million from the feds, then:

The content of the Initial Financial Plan and each Annual Update should be certified as "accurate and reasonable to the best of my knowledge and belief" by the Chief Executive Officer of the Project Sponsor(s)... Acceptance and approval will be based upon a compliance review that will evaluate, among other items, the reasonableness of the cost estimates, the viability of the identified funding sources (including whether they are contained in the fiscally constrained State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), and Long Range Plan), and the likelihood that the funding commitments will prove sufficient to complete the project as planned.

Well, when Salem's incoming Mayor is on record as saying "we're not going to build a bridge financed by tolls in Salem, Oregon," that sure seems to undercut the "viability of the identified funding sources."

At the beginning of the KYKN interview clip, Mayor-elect Bennett says about the Third Bridge:

Let's settle on a location and then at some point design a bridge that the residents of this community feel would serve their needs and they'd be willing to pay for.

The No 3rd Bridge post says this isn't possible. And I'm confident that's correct.

As I wrote about in "Why the unbuilt Third Bridge boondoggle is hurting Salem," Bob Cortright is helping opponents of the Third Bridge understand the approval process. Since Cortright spent 30 years working for Oregon's Department of Land Conservation and Development, where he was the Transportation Planning Coordinator, I trust his knowledge on this subject. 

So almost certainly Mayor-elect Bennett is wrong.

You can't settle on a plan for a $430 million bridge (known as the Preferred Alternative), submit an Environmental Impact Statement and funding strategy based on that plan, and later tell the Federal Highway Administration, "Hey, now we're going to do something very different; hope that's OK with you guys."

It won't be. Bait and Switch not only is fraudulent, often it is illegal. 

Bennett seems to think that a cute cheap little 2-lane bridge could be substituted for the half-billion-dollar Third Bridge if that's what Salem citizens "feel would serve their needs and they'd be willing to pay for." 

This isn't my understanding of how the federal approval process works.

First the bridge is designed. A credible funding plan is developed to go with the design. Then all that is sent in to the Federal Highway Administration for approval. Bennett seems to think the approval comes first, and the design plus funding plan can be... whatever.

Hopefully some City official can educate Mayor-elect Bennett about how the process really works.

Lastly, let's follow the money and get a pretty damn good clue about why Chuck Bennett is such a strong advocate for the Third Bridge. In his 2016 Mayoral campaign Bennett took $3,000 from the Chamber of Commerce Build Jobs PAC, $5,000 from the Oregon Realtors PAC, and $7,500 from the Marion/Polk Homebuilders Association. 

Another No 3rd Bridge post explains why Salem realtors and homebuilders are so hot for the Third Bridge. And why they're happy they've got a Mayor who will do his best to give them what they lust for.

WHY REALTORS ARE CHAMPIONS FOR THE 3RD BRIDGE
A number of realtors testified last Wednesday in favor of the 3rd Bridge. Here is a key paragraph (click to read) of their written testimony. And next to that is a map showing their true motivation.

Selling homes! Of course.

You can see from the map that one of the largest areas of undeveloped land zoned for single family homes (in yellow) is in the northwest corner of the city. Hundreds and hundreds of homes could be built and sold! And these folks will want to get in their cars and make a direct connection to I-5 without having to drive miles south to the Center Street bridge. That's why all of us are being asked to reach into our pockets for hundreds of millions to fund a better connection for these new homebuyers.

That is what the Realtors mean when they say "the 3rd Bridge is vital for the future economic growth in the area." That's what they mean by "regional mobility." It means speeding their new homebuyers to Keizer Station, the Woodburn Outlet Mall and to Portland. And because they contributed many thousands of dollars to certain City Councilors, they are likely to get the land use actions they want.

Salem's Civic Center needs renovating, not replacing

There's more and more talk floating around about doing away with the Salem City Hall and Library, even though the buildings are only 44 years old. 

Geez. Our house was built at almost exactly the same time. My wife and I have steadily maintained and improved it since we bought our home in 1990. It's still highly livable, and worth much more than we paid for it.

In Europe, buildings hundreds of years old are still in use.

So why is it that I keep hearing rumors that City officials want to trash Salem's not-very-old City Hall and Library -- selling the downtown property for commercial use and somehow transferring Civic Center functions elsewhere?

A recent Statesman Journal editorial about the proposed new police facility adds fuel to those rumors:

In contrast, the city of Salem has not done that same thorough examination and long-term planning for the rest of the Vern Miller Civic Center and the library.

The 1970s civic center is uninviting and confusingly designed. Should Salem have a smaller city hall, with drive-thru convenience, and make better use of online portals and video interaction for serving residents and businesses? Likewise, how would a 21st century library be best designed to serve the community?

Salem needs to find those answers before deciding what to do with the current city hall and library.

Well, SJ editorial page editor Dick Hughes must have forgotten that just a few years ago, there was just such a "thorough examination" of the Civic Center. 

In 2010 a University of Oregon Sustainable Cities Initiative did extensive planning for a Civic Center renovation.  A few years later, City officials brought forth a proposal to build a new 75,000 square foot police facility just north of City Hall, and also extensively renovate/seismically retrofit the Civic Center.

Ignore the rectangular three story building on the right side of this image. That's the police facility. Community opposition led to a plan to build it on the Civic Center campus being dropped. 

But look at how much more inviting City Hall looks.

The atrium is removed and landscaping is added, making City Hall look much more inviting. A new City Council chambers is at the top left of the image (both the current atrium and City Council chambers would be prohibitively expensive to seismically retrofit).

This image shows a more schematic view of the Civic Center renovation. Again, ignore the police facility building at top right. Otherwise, there's a lot to like about the plan. At the very least, it's a great start toward a safer, more attractive, and more efficient Civic Center -- by renovating the existing buildings, not replacing them.

This is part of background information about prior police facility planning that was provided in October 2014 to the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Police Facility. 

As you can see, it says that in 2011, a City Council subcommittee concluded that "seismic strengthening of the existing Civic Center facilities extends the life of the buildings for 40 to 50 years, completes more than $17 million of the $22 million in deferred maintenance projects at the Civic Center, helps to create more convenient public parking and public access to the property and a more active, welcoming setting while retaining and enhancing other important elements and natural features of the campus."

This isn't ancient history. It is just five years ago. 

So why is there talk now, as in the Statesman Journal editorial, of starting over on discussions of how to maintain the Civic Center?

Why ignore a lot of work that points to a way of making the Civic Center buildings earthquake-safe, extending the life of the buildings for 40 to 50 years, and taking care of the bulk of deferred maintenance on the buildings, all for about $20 million?

(City staff say the current cost of seismically retrofitting City Hall and the Library is $26.7 million.)

"Fix it" just makes hugely more sense than "tear it down and start over." This was the advice an expert urban planner, Chuck Marohn, offered to Salem when he spoke recently at the Library auditorium.  Here's what I said in Five "Strong Town" things Salem is doing wrong.

"We are fools if we build more," Marohn, who toured Salem yesterday morning, said. He made similar negative comments about the $500 million proposed Third Bridge several times during his talk.

As noted above, his main theme was that cities can't afford to build costly infrastructure that costs way MORE money to maintain over coming decades. "How much does your tax base have to go up to pay for this project?" he asked...He offered up the analogy of someone wanting to build an addition to their house, but not first fixing the leaky roof.

Yet now City officials are pushing Measure 24-399, an $82 million police facility bond measure that no longer includes any money for seismic retrofitting of City Hall and the Library, which as shown above would go a long way toward taking care of the massive amount of deferred maintenance on these valuable buildings.

This is a big reason why I'm urging a NO vote on Measure 24-399.

Salem's Police Department does need a new police facility.

But in 2013, the plan of City officials was to build a much less expensive 75,000 square foot facility and make renovations to the Civic Center -- in the option shown above this would cost $56 million, which is $26 million less than the $82 million taxpayers are being asked to pay via Measure 24-399 for an oversized police facility alone.

Hopefully talk of doing away with City Hall and the Library is just that, talk.

It'd be a shame to trash buildings whose life span can be extended for 40-50 years by doing seismic retrofitting that also will save lives when the Big One Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake hits.

No, savings from Measure 24-399 WOULDN'T fund Civic Center seismic strengthening

Here's another T.J. Sullivan falsehood about Measure 24-399, the $82 million police facility bond on Salem's November ballot. (Sullivan's previous falsehood is described here.)

At the September 23 Salem City Club debate on the police facility bond between Sullivan and me, he said this:

So if we get $82 million for this new police facility, and we don't use the whole $82 million, we can, depending on how we write the bonding language, we can take that money and put it into retrofitting City Hall and the Library...That's the fastest way we're going to get City Hall and the Library retrofitted, by passing this bond.

Not true.

Here's a portion of the "Progress Report: Police Facility Planning" document prepared by Steve Powers, the Salem City Manager, for the April 4, 2016 City Council meeting. I've highlighted a couple of  especially pertinent points.

Powers notes that given the amount of contingency funds in the $82 million budget -- $5.4 million -- "it is unlikely that the project will be completed with adequate savings to make a measurable impact on the seismic strengthening need of Civic Center buildings, which is currently estimated at approximately $26.6 million (in 2016 dollars."

For sure.

The chance of this $82 million project coming in $27 million under budget is essentially zero. So T.J. Sullivan was just making stuff up when he said, "That's the fastest way we're going to get City Hall and the Library retrofitted, by passing this bond."

No, it isn't.

The fastest way is to REJECT Measure 24-399 so a better plan can be passed next year that includes money to save lives by seismically retrofitting City Hall and the Library, which City officials intended to do before the size and cost of the police facility doubled after Chicago consultants "supersized" the building.

Watch this 3 1/2 minute video where I explain why it makes so much sense to reject the overpriced $82 million bond measure for a wiser $50-$60 million plan that gives the Police Department a perfectly adequate new building AND saves lives by making City Hall and the Library earthquake-safe.

(The video shows two segments of the Salem City Club debate; first I talk about the need for seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center, then answer a question from the moderator about what will happen if Measure 24-399 is voted down.)

Creekside golf course farce highlights City of Salem dysfunction

So... today we learn that after months of Creekside advocates moaning and groaning that the golf club absolutely needs a $60,000 irrigation water rate reduction or it will go out of business, thanks to good reporting by the Statesman Journal's Tracy Loew we know this isn't true.

Creekside Golf Club’s owners have released a statement saying they will not close the business after all.

"We want to reassure the membership that our intentions are not to close Creekside Golf Club and we would like to put that concern to rest," owners Terry Kelly and Larry Tokarski wrote.

Since April, the owners have been adamant that, without a reduction in their city water bill, they would close the course and develop the property into housing.

As recently as Monday, club manager Danny Moore told the Salem City Council that a proposed irrigator rate decrease was the only thing that would keep the business going.

But that testimony was incorrect, a club member committee now says.

Obviously there's a lot of dysfunction in the Creekside Golf Club. When the owners say the manager doesn't know what he's talking about, pretty clearly this business is struggling to find its way.

But what I find much more interesting is how the Creekside debacle points to longstanding dysfunction in Salem's City Hall, where a conservative Mayor and her right-wing City Council majority have been demonstrating their incompetence in running the City of Salem.

(Improvement should be coming in 2017, after voters elected three progressive councilors who take office in January. Unfortunately, Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett is a major contributor to the current dysfunction, so he and the four right-wingers who will remain on the 9-member City Council can continue to control it.)

Here's my takeaways on the larger implications of what I like to call the "IrriGate" scandal. My numerous posts on this subject can be found here.

When special interests in this town whistle, City officials come running. With their tongues hanging out, because the Chamber of Commerce's Create Jobs PAC, along with other special interests, have been the major contributors to the campaigns of Mayor Peterson, Mayor-elect Bennett, and the right-wing city councilors.

Larry Tokarski, President of Mountain West Investment and a co-owner of the Creekside Golf Club, is a very rich guy. A $60,000 water rate irrigation reduction must be spare change to him. But still, he wanted it, and the usual gang of City officials jumped to attention.

Why? Well, just follow the money.

And pay attention to the ethics complaint filed against Councilor Steve McCoid, who lives at Creekside and is a golf course member. He came up with the idea to give the golf course a $60,000 water rate reduction by lowering the rate for all irrigators and saddling regular water users with a $600,000 rate increase.

The Oregon Government Ethics Commission is reviewing a complaint filed against Salem City Councilor Steve McCoid over his involvement in a deal to reduce Creekside Golf Club’s water bill.

McCoid is a member of the golf club, which has said it will close if it doesn’t get a rate reduction. And he owns a home in nearby Creekside Estates, where owners worry that property values would plummet if the course closes.

An outmoded crony capitalism philosophy rules at City Hall. The obvious question about the whole Creekside Golf Club water rate weirdness is "Why the heck should the City of Salem bail out a struggling private golf course?"

Many courses across the country are closing because fewer people are golfing. Yet the first reaction of Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett was to say:

“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.”

Well, Chuck, the answer is that giving tax breaks and other subsidies to companies almost always is a really dumb thing to do. Urban planning expert Chuck Marohn spoke about this during his recent talk in Salem.

Paying someone to pretend to love you isn't going to produce a good longterm relationship. Neither is giving subsidies to businesses in a similar form of governmental prostitution. 

It's decidedly strange that the so-called conservatives currently in charge at City Hall are so dismissive of free market capitalism. I'm confident they decry the federal government picking "winners and losers," but they're totally on board with the City of Salem doling out subsidies to chosen businesses.

Especially those who are big contributors to their election campaigns.

High-ranking city officials rarely think carefully or ask good questions. Having closely watched Salem's Mayor and City Council for the past three years or so, I've been struck by how poorly important issues are analyzed, delved into, discussed, debated.

Groupthink rules at City Hall.

Unanimity and complete consensus is valued over seeking out the truth and finding the wisest course of action. Questioning is viewed as an attack, or "bomb throwing." Pointing out factual errors is met with heads-in-the-sand denial. Skepticism about a poorly thought-out policy is dismissed as negativism.

In this Creekside Golf Club example, why didn't the Mayor, city councilors, and high-ranking city staff (such as City Manager Steve Powers and Public Works Director Peter Fernandez) ever wonder...

(1) How a $60,000 annual water rate reduction could be so crucial to saving a golf course with 50 jobs?

Let's assume very conservatively that each job costs Creekside $40,000: 50 X $40,000 is $2 million. Is a multimillion dollar business going to sink or swim over the long haul because of a $60,000 reduction in an annual expense? Plus, the golf course manager had said that the Creekside already was laying off several staff, so the business already must have cut expenses on its own by more than $60,000. 

But from what I can tell, nobody at the City of Salem ever asked these obvious questions.

(2) Why is it supposedly so important to keep the Creekside Golf Club open?

When he wasn't urging a subsidy to Creekside to save those 50 jobs, Mayor-elect Bennett liked to talk about the need to preserve the golf course open space so storm runoff caused by Tokarski turning the land into a pavement-filled subdivision wouldn't flood other parts of Salem.

Again, poor thinking. 

City planners don't have to approve land use actions that aren't in the public interest. They can put conditions on a new subdivision, such as requiring stormwater runoff to be within certain bounds, and handled in certain ways. Bennett made it sound like the City of Salem was helpless to stop the owners of the golf course from doing whatever they wanted if they decided to turn it into a dense subdivision.

But again, from what I can tell, nobody at the City of Salem considered how untrue this was. 

T.J. Sullivan lies about cost of proposed Salem police facility

Yeah, I know.

"Lie" is a word that's supposed to be reserved for Donald Trump'ian sorts of deliberate falsehoods. "Misspoke," "shaded the truth," "was inaccurate" -- these are oft-heard replacements for "lie."

But I don't what else to call what T.J. Sullivan, a representative of the Keep Salem Safe campaign that's advocating for Measure 24-399, the vastly over-priced $82 million police facility bond measure on the November ballot, did last night at a Morningside Neighborhood Association meeting.

Sullivan spoke first during the "pro" and "con" agenda item.

Then I had another five minutes to present the Salem Can Do Better arguments for voting NO on the bond measure so a wiser, less expensive police facility plan could be adopted next year that includes public safety funds for making the Library and City Hall earthquake-safe -- which City officials planned to do before some Chicago consultants "supersized" the police facility.

During my presentation I used a poster board chart that compares the cost per square foot for the proposed Salem police facility, and four other police facilities that have been built recently in Oregon, plus the cost of a proposed Beaverton facility. 

Sullivan had seen this chart three weeks ago, when we'd taken opposite sides on Measure 24-399 at a September 23 Salem City Club debate. At that debate I'd also shared copies of a cost per square foot handout that had some explanatory text. (See above.)

So Sullivan had ample opportunity to check the numbers on the chart and handout. After all, I included the total square footage of each facility and the total cost -- obtained by me after doing some Googling until I found the size and development cost for the other five police facilities.

Yet when someone at the Morningside Neighborhood Association asked a question about why the Salem police facility cost was so high, Sullivan jumped up, pointed at my chart, and starting talking about how the chart was wrong, an "apples and oranges" thing, supposedly misleadingly showing the total development cost for Salem, and just the lower construction cost for the other five facilities.

(The development cost includes such things as furnishings, design fees, land acquisition, contingencies, and such.)

As soon as I grasped what Sullivan was saying, I blurted out "Wrong!" Because he was.

I'd done the research for the chart. I'd found the web sites where the total development cost and square footage of the other five police facilities was shown. I knew that Sullivan was wrong. 

But instead of replying with something reasonable like, "Well, maybe I'm mistaken," or "I need to look into this more closely," Sullivan kept on with his lie.

When I had the chance, I jumped up and reiterated that Sullivan was wrong, telling the people in the room that I'd prepared the chart and knew that the figure for each police facility reflected the total development cost. Yet amazingly, T.J. Sullivan still kept claiming otherwise -- interrupting me much more rudely than I'd interrupted him.

I finally had to say, "T.J., I let you talk; now let me talk."

It really bothers me when political discourse in Salem descends into purposeful falsehoods. In other words, lying. I could have accepted that Sullivan thought the chart wrongly mixed total development and construction costs. But after I repeatedly told him that, as the chart researcher/designer, I knew that this wasn't the case, Sullivan should have backed off.

I'm not saying that Sullivan acted as poorly as Donald Trump. But he echoed Trump's style when he kept repeating something that wasn't true even after the truth had been pointed out to him. 

Hopefully this was a Keep Salem Safe campaign aberration, and we won't see any more false statements from the Yes on Measure 24-399 folks. 

And here's an open invitation to them: if you find something factually wrong in the Salem Can Do Better "vote NO" literature, let me know about it. I'll check out the supposed problem and fix it if we've said something that's inaccurate. 

But please, don't accuse me or other opponents of Measure 24-399 of promulgating misleading information when you don't have any facts to back that up.

Third Bridge planning by City of Salem is horrendously bad

Billion dollars, so what? Just trust us and pay the bill.  

In a nutshell, that's how officials at the City of Salem are approaching the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, known also as the Salem River Crossing, Third Bridge, or Preferred Alternative.

They're rushing to get an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) expansion approved that's necessary for the proposed bridgeheads on either side of the Willamette. 

There's a joint hearing tonight at the 55+ Center, 6 - 9 pm, to hear public testimony on the UGB expansion.

The Salem City Council, the Keizer City Council, the Marion County Commission and the Polk County Commission will hold a joint public hearing to take testimony from citizens on proposed land use actions relating to construction of the Salem River Crossing "Preferred Alternative."

It should be a doozy. (Man, I haven't used that word in a long time. I've missed you, doozy!)

So much stinks about the way Third Bridge planning has been handled, I can almost smell the stench emanating from City Hall. The Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger has been doing a great job digging through recently-released documents about the Salem River Crossing, revealing how much crap is being spread.

Here's links to his posts, along with an excerpt from each.

ODOT's Careless Approach on US20 Project Echoes in Geology Report for SRC
The Preferred Alternative as it is discussed in the Geology Addendum looks to be engineered for a mid-sized earthquake only. It doesn't look like it's reinforced to megaquake standards. So there will likely be overruns and it will still collapse!

And to make it actually stable to the megaquake standard would add much, much more, and multiply its already overrun cost.

Even if you think we desperately need the SRC in its present form, the current budget is not realistic and it will cost even more for the class of seismic stability we actually need.

Given those additional costs, is it still worth it?

The answer here is no.

Wildlife Addendum Dismisses Heron Rookery: McLane Island Needs More Study
A while back N3B observed that there was a significant Heron rookery on McLane Island and that the bridge and its construction activity would disturb it.

As with the Geology Technical Addendum, the Wildlife report is cavalier and shallow. Other agencies and organizations also echo the notion that the level of study and communication to this point is shallow and incomplete. From multiple sources and angles, not just transportation advocates, there is an accumulating body of evidence that the SRC is being rushed at this moment.

(Which is ironic since it has been going on for a decade! It is likely that elements of rushing and superficial analysis are a product of a bad project: If the SRC was such an obvious good thing, we would see more concise reports with greater clarity in conclusions and more frictionless communication, with longer lead-times, between agencies. It wouldn't all come to this last-minute rush. The lurching and clogging and uncertainty is a kind of epiphenomenon arising out of a dumb idea and poorly designed project. A sound project would be so much easier to process and there would be something closer to a positive consensus.)

SRC Energy Report: Net Increase in Energy, Petroleum Consumption
I don't know that there needs to be a whole lot of introduction to theEnergy Technical Report Addendum on the Salem River Crossing. The report is clear that the Preferred Alternative does not lessen greenhouse gas emissions by reducing congestion and idling. On the contrary, it "would provide a net increase in energy consumption."

...If our goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we should seek to make driving trips shorter, and to make it easy not to make driving trips at all. The SRC does not contribute to either. In this, the SRC is inconsistent with HB3543, which calls for us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 75% below 1990 levels by 2050.

The Blizzard and the Shifting Sands: City Fails on Statewide Planning Goal 1
Between the massiveness of the document dump and the compressed time lines, the SRC team has failed to observe Statewide Planning Goal 1 on "Citizen Involvement."

...The schedule was compressed on purpose and information was withheld from other Public Agencies in addition to the general public.

Part of the plan was clearly to overwhelm critics and other citizens with an impossibly large burden of reading material...That's 93 documents, many of them tens of pages, some of them hundreds of pages long.

...But a key is that it is not possible for the citizenry to be able on very short notice to winnow the chaff and isolate the most relevant documents for closer analysis.

Even if you think seven days notice is adequate (and that is not the position here), by the project's own plans, there should have been a stable document list by the end of Wednesday.

The project team failed to do this.

Memo on Alternate Modes Study Shows How Little Has Been Done
Assessing the Alt Modes Study accurately is important because the SRC keeps saying over and over "the traffic modeling performed for the Salem River Crossing Project assumed that more aggressive transit and TSM/TDM programs would be implemented." (From the Land Use Addenda.) What has happened though is the speech and intent keeps getting substituted for action, and we act as if what we say we will do we have in fact already done.

The Alternate Modes Study recommendations for bike/ped has in no way been implemented "aggressively" and we should want to see this done before we move forward with anything for the Bridge.

Memo on Alternate Modes Study, Pt 2 - TDM Badly Underfunded
In the end, we have taken baby steps only on implementing the Alternate Modes Study. In order to achieve the 8% reduction the SRC traffic modeling assumes, we will have to make "aggressive" steps, not just baby steps. It is possible that we discover those steps are more effective than we supposed - again, we need to try hard - and confirm that spending $5 million or $50 million on walking, biking, and busing is way more effective than $500 million on a new bridge and highway.

The No 3rd Bridge folks also have been putting up some great Facebook posts about this newest episode in the Billion Dollar Boondoggle debacle.

WEST SALEM NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION: STOP THE 3RD BRIDGE

Here is a preview of testimony from the Land Use Committee of the West Salem Neighborhood Association at tonight's public hearing on the 3rd Bridge. Even they are opposed to the 3rd Bridge. And this is supposed to be for them. This is supposed to relieve their congestion. We expect many other Neighborhood Associations to be testifying against the 3rd Bridge tonight. Will any be in favor? We doubt it. Will the Salem City Council listen and pull the plug on the 3rd Bridge? We doubt it.

READING ALL THE STAFF AND TECHNICAL REPORTS ON THE 3RD BRIDGE POSTED SINCE 10/5 WOULD BE LIKE READING WAR AND PEACE NEARLY THREE TIMES

That's right. There are a total of 63 staff reports and techical reports and other "supporting documents" that the City posted on its "Land Use Actions, Case Number CA16-40" website just since last Wednesday. The public hearing is next Wednesday. Here's how the page count compares to Tolstoy's War and Peace ...

War and Peace (1st edition): 1,225 pages

3rd Bridge Reports Posted Since Last Wednesday: 3,516 pages

Is anyone going to even attempt this?

The average person reads about one page per minute, so it would take 58.6 hours to read all the reports and documents. If you read 8 hours per day it would take you just over a week. So you could have done it if you started reading last Wednesday.

But it's too late now.

GREAT NEWS! CHERRIOTS BOARD VOTES TO OPPOSE LAND USE ACTIONS FOR THE 3RD BRIDGE

After reporting bad news from meetings of various elected officials for many years here, it is refreshing to be able to report some good news. We just learned that at its most recent meeting in September, the Salem-Keizer Transit District Board voted to oppose the land use actions of the City of Salem concerning the Salem River Crossing Preferred Alternative. The motion, that was passed unanimously, was as follows:

“I move the Board oppose the City of Salem’s current land use action to expand the city’s Urban Growth Boundary and amend the Transportation System Plan and to authorize Director [Kathy] Lincoln at the October 12th Joint Public Hearing on behalf of the Board of Directors.”

So...

West Salem doesn't want the bridge.
Cherriots, Salem's bus system, 0pposes the UGB expansion.
Public involvement in the Third Bridge planning process has been a farce.
The bridge won't withstand the Big One earthquake.
Cost overruns are almost guaranteed. 
A Heron rookery will be destroyed.
Dozens of existing homes and businesses will be demolished.
The bridge will increase greenhouse gas emissions.
Alternative transportation modes are being ignored.
Fixing the current bridges/approaches would cost hugely less.

But almost certainly, Salem's clueless Mayor and her right-wing City Council majority will do their best to rush forward with the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, knowing that Salem voters elected three sensible new city councilors who will take office in January, and they oppose the Third Bridge.

Crazy. But that's the way things are going at City Hall these days. Messily. Crazily. Incompetently.

Breaking news: Michael Davis is out as Statesman Journal executive editor

Ah, it gives me great pleasure to scoop the Statesman Journal on a story -- especially since it involves one of the newspaper's top staff, executive editor Michael Davis. 

Who is gone. Fired seemingly is a more accurate word. 

I first broke the news on this last Wednesday, in a Facebook post.

Confirmation of Davis' departure comes from a comparison of the Statesman Journal's editorial board composition on consecutive days.

Wednesday, October 5, Michael Davis was listed.

Thursday, October 6, Michael Davis is gone. The reason(s) for his departure aren't known yet. They might have something to do with his management style, given the turnover of numerous competent reporters in recent months.

Despite my Facebook post-expressed worry about who is going to be appointed to replace him by the Gannett Corporation, on the whole I think Davis' departure is a good thing.

When he came to town in 2013, long-time readers of the SJ like me were optimistic about the changes Davis could bring. I blogged "Michael Davis promises to revitalize Salem Statesman Journal" after hearing him give a talk to the Salem City Club. 

But that promise fell flat.

It didn't take long before it was obvious that Davis was a lot more committed to fluffing up the Statesman Journal with frothy reader-generated features like a Kid's Page and Holding Court (where Davis gets people to visit him at a Court Street restaurant and talk about stuff they want publicized in the paper), than to substantive reporting on important local issues.

By September 2014 I was so disappointed with what Michael Davis had failed to wrought, I gave his newspaper the dubious honor of being the first target of a Truth Bomb. In "The Statesman Journal is failing Salem," I said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was deeply disappointing.

It told me that Statesman Journal executives weren't willing to challenge the Powers That Be who do their best to run this town from a suspected underground bunker that has direct communication connections to the newspaper's assignment desk (I need confirmation about the bunker; if anyone has photos, send them to me.)

There are, however, recent glimmers of hope.

Tracy Loew has been doing some excellent reporting on our local "Watergate" scandal, the attempt to get the City of Salem to reduce the water bill for the Creekside Golf Course (which is owned by Larry Tokarski, a big contributor to right-wing political campaigns) and other large irrigators while raising water rates on ordinary citizens.

(Click here to read my posts about the Creekside water rate debacle.)

Today Loew has a good story out called "Secrecy surrounds Creekside water deal." It's pleasing to see the Statesman Journal doing some excellent investigative reporting.

With Michael Davis gone, hopefully the next executive editor will be even more aggressive about holding City of Salem officials accountable for the crap they regularly subject the citizenry to.