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May 30, 2018

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I agree, this has been handled badly. Where is Chuck Bennett? It would be reassuring to have the mayor at least appearing to provide strong leadership on the issue.
Also the city should do more to make sure that susceptible populations can obtain safe water. Most stores ran out of water Tuesday night. Parents with young children cannot go from store to see who has water and then pay inflated prices for water when stores do have it. Salem officials were reluctant to declare a state of emergency, but that does not prevent them from publicly urging merchants to ration supplies and not to inflate the price.

Another reason to always be prepared at home for an emergency. Obviously the City of Salem is not prepared to handle an emergency, any emergency.
What I want to know is:
Why did it take 3 days to tell the citizens the water was contaminated? Obviously the City water quality supervisor, city officials and city council do not give a damn about the citizens who pay their wages. Children, health compromised and otherwise at risk people have been drinking the contaminated water for at least 3 days after the city KNEW about it. Did the city bring in water for distribution for those who cannot afford bottled water?
Citizens demand answers. And perhaps there should be a penalty for betraying the trust we put in our officials.
Why wasn’t the emergency alert tested before this emergency? It was useless. As are the top level bureaucrats that oversee it. Perhaps they need to seek employment elsewhere.
We all knew Detroit had an algae bloom 2 weeks ago. Knowing that Salem gets its drinking water from it, it would seem reasonable that the water quality should have been tested way before May 25th.
Total failure and breach of trust by those who are supposed to protect our drinking water, and those who are supposed to oversee emergencies.
I bought 4 cases of drinking water $7.40 x 4 =$ 29.60 who in the city of Salem do I send my bill to? If you had to buy water as well, send them the bill.

Lynn, I believe Mayor Bennett is out of town. He wasn't at last Tuesday's City Council meeting. I've been told by someone that he's on an extended vacation, so that explains his absence on the toxic algae issue.

I think it is quite telling that the city, in quick response to questions about water availability, said that emergency water would not be supplied. In addition, they seemed to think it was a great advantage for the retailers (corporate owned) to assume the benefit of the sales. Of course, the price can be set at any level, though I have no proof of this actually happening.

Wouldn’t it be a benefit to the whole community if the city had been more thoughtful and if they actually showed some effort to put a plan in place to connect the most needy with the-resources they need ?

The City of Keizer has done more to help out the people of Salem than the City of Salem has.

I have not seen anything from my local City Council rep, nothing from the mayor, and all I saw was Peter Fernandez hiding behind a press conference microphone hemming and hawwing like he always does. Maybe with the mayor out of town our second most powerful person in city government, the city manager steve powers could have stepped up? The lack of leadership during this crisis is very telling about the quality of local government.

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