Salem Political Snark

Poetic goodbye to Old Lindbeck Orchard shows what's wrong with Salem development

I'm sharing a moving opinion piece by Jane Wille in today's Statesman Journal because we need more poetic feeling and less financial greed here in Salem.

As you'll read below, Wille is saddened by the loss of the Old Lindbeck Orchard property in West Salem, which she says is to become high-density retirement housing.

Last year the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger reported that it looked like a fenced gated community apartment complex was planned for the property.

This supposedly is progress. I'm not so sure.

After Wille's piece, you can read the comment I left on the Statesman Journal web site about what she wrote. I'll have more to say on this subject down below.

Here's an iPhone screenshot of the Google Maps satellite image of the Old Lindbeck Orchard.

And here's what Wille said about the transformation of the orchard property:

It was a heart-wrenching day in West Salem as men and machines moved on the last remnant of the old Lindbeck orchard and farm (on Orchard Heights Road NW) .  

Sold by the owners years ago for development of high-density retirement housing, the land, having been spent on industry and profit it once yielded, enjoyed its own retirement, its own industry, its own profit.

This orchard, “abandoned” by the human enterprise, responded with its own enterprise: habitat for plants, animals, insects, soil microbes, fungi, mosses; food for those same inhabitants; shelter; and a treasured place for the local people who walked, sat, thought, watched, listened, laughed, cried, breathed, and reveled in the richness, the diversity, and the peace among the old trees and all the denizens living there.

Relegated to oblivion by those who had every right to relegate it, it drew life of all sorts to thrive and prosper:  feeding, sheltering, comforting, energizing, inspiring, moving, quieting all who would come with capacity to appreciate it.  Until the bulldozers, the mowers, the one-woman protester, and the police met in a sad and hopeless moment — the surveys done, the meetings met, the papers signed, the legalities impregnable.

One of the young men on a machine said to the one-woman protestor who lay herself down in his path that he was sorry, he had education enough to run his machine and, in that running, to feed his own hungry souls.  He was bereft; we all are in the loss of this living, dynamic, diverse treasure sacrificed forever.

Ideally, an old orchard, like an old relative, is safe, soft-spoken, unconcerned with time’s frenzies, experienced, wise in its way.  Once that orchard, that land, produced in response to the hard-working people who shepherded it: making and giving its fruits to the farmers who worked it, cared for it, as a young, vigorous money-maker, supporter of commerce and feeder of the apple-hungry, thereby delighting tastebuds near and far.

The retirement of this place, left to simply be, is most rudely, irrevocably ruined, with far-reaching implications for all of us.  If it cannot survive, neither can we.

               Jane Wille, a South Salem resident, can be reached at [email protected]

This was my comment.

Jane, thank you for giving voice in such a poetic and sensitive fashion to what so many people in Salem feel, yet have difficulty expressing in the way you did so well in this opinion piece.

In the single-minded pursuit of monetary profit, developers are laying waste to priceless, irreplaceable land that could be fashioned into a fresh use while still preserving natural habitat that is so essential for human thriving.

With every needless destruction of trees and other natural wonders, Salem is selling its soul for... what? A few extra bucks in the pockets of greedy developers, while the quality of life for everyone else in this town suffers.

There are lots of people who feel the way you do. We need to make our voices heard more strongly. Hopefully your paean to the now-gone West Salem orchard and farm will lead to what is known as "smart growth," not the dumb growth we're experiencing now.

Here's some explanation of why I said what I did.

Fairly regularly I hear from people who are disturbed by how a new development is affecting their neighborhood. This isn't NIMBY, Not in My Backyard, reflexive anti-development sentiments.

Rather, these people have good reasons to be concerned about why their quality of life is being needlessly sacrificed when the owner of a piece of property could have still made a good amount of profit while preserving trees and other natural areas.

I'm reminded of how the Salem Futures project was stopped in its tracks after making good progress, following a conservative takeover of the Mayor's office and City Council.

Googling "Salem Futures," there is very little information online about this effort. Thankfully, Salem Weekly has some mentions of it in the newspaper's online archive.

Here's excerpts from a 2011 Salem Weekly story, "Out with the old, in with the new."

“Smart growth” was once said with a sneer locally. “Sustainability” meant large businesses were not welcome and “green” was just the color of money being raked in.

Field Director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV) Tresa Horney says that gauging Salem’s progress environmentally is hard to pinpoint because of the economic circumstances that the city has faced.

“At one point Salem was recognized as a national leader in environmental issues, under [former mayor] Mike Swaim. Today, it’s obviously a different story,” says Horney.

Development philosophy changed drastically when Salem City Council turned more conservative in 2003. While each of the councilor positions are non-partisan, the decisions made began to show that voters had elected to move farther to the right.

Salem became, according to the Associated Press at the time, the first major city in Oregon to establish an environmental commission to focus solely on local issues in 2002. It was disbanded in 2004.

...April 2004 – Salem City Council votes to eliminate the Salem Futures Citizen Advisory Council. Salem Futures had amassed, reportedly, $1.3 million in city and state funds and thousands of hours of volunteer time.

Salem Futures planned community development over the next 50 years. At the time, the CAC was made up of approximately 30 community leaders.

And here's a comment by Richard Reid regarding Salem Futures on a 2017 Salem Weekly story about the City of Salem's first strategic plan.

Some of your readers and a couple of your Editorial Committee will recall the strategic plan we called Salem Futures created during Mayor Swaim’s second term. Articles about Salem Futures are in local news archives available at Salem Public Library.

It was a pretty big deal; ODOT granted $1.3 million to help the City host charettes across town for a little over a year. Dialogues between a broad range of community interests and city planners produced a planning document that drew positive comment from beyond Oregon.

Unusual for a strategic plan Salem Futures was drafted on a 50-year timeline laying out major transportation corridors and other features like “walkability” and “public space” where people could meet up and linger. Multi-use zone overlays were designed to nudge commercial development closer to existing and future transportation corridors; a way of lowering the public’s cost of providing services while streamlining entry into the local marketplace.

All that went bye-bye thanks to the Salem Chamber of Commerce deciding that Mayor Swaim and a liberal majority on the City Council needed to be replaced by conservatives who would prioritize the interests of developers over the broad public interest.

Salem is still paying the price for this.

We've gotten ugly sprawl, traffic jams, a lack of attractive mixed-use neighborhoods, and a general anti-environment philosophy at City Hall that has only recently begun to be altered.

Just as a supertanker takes a long time to change direction, so does planning and land use policies here in Salem. It was a big mistake to disband Salem Futures when much good work had been accomplished by this pioneering effort. 

I'm hopeful that five or ten years from now, people will look back on 2018 as a turning point for Salem -- a time when the mistakes of the conservative-dominated past had begun to be rectified by a wiser group of progressives on the City Council. 

How did the Salem police facility cost balloon 36% in just 18 months?

Last night the Salem City Council, meeting as the Urban Renewal Agency board, failed to ask the right questions about a massive cost overrun on the not-yet-built new police facility.

This failure was across the board. Council progressives didn't ask the right questions. Neither did the council conservatives. The Mayor didn't ask the right questions. And City of Salem staff sure didn't either.

So I'm going to present some key questions that went unasked. 

What bothered me the most about the approval of $2 million in urban renewal funds to fill a hole in the police facility budget wasn't so much the decision itself, but the failure of the Mayor and city councilors to fulfill their role as careful overseers of public funds.

Watching the proceedings via the CCTV feed from home, I couldn't believe that the slide presentation by a City staff person didn't set off alarm bells that should have led to these questions being asked.

(1) How is it that the construction budget for the police facility jumped 36% in just 18 months? As shown in the screenshot above, when the City Council decided in February 2017 to have a $61.8 million bond measure put on the May 2017 ballot, the construction budget for a 115,000 square foot facility was $42,233,000. 

But last night City staff said that the current "Actual Construction" cost for a 115,000 square foot building is $57,448,331. Again, that's a 36% jump between February 2017 and July 2018.  

UPDATE: Beaverton voters approved building a $35 million Public Safety building shortly before Salem's police facility was approved. In May 2018 a newspaper story reported that costs for the Beaverton facility have increased 17% over the past 18 months. That's about half of the jump in Salem's cost.

Further update: However, I just realized that the figure for Beaverton was an overall cost figure, not just construction costs. So the comparable percentage increase for the Salem police facility is 23% (adding soft costs to construction costs). This makes the overall Salem police facility cost increase close to the Beaverton increase, though it doesn't answer the questions below.

(2) Why is the 36% jump in construction costs so much more than inflation over the past 18 months? City staff presented several estimates of recent construction cost inflation. The image below was a small part of a larger slide, hence its fuzziness. My reading of the chart is that construction cost inflation has been about 10% since 2017, which is way less than 36%. 

(As noted on the chart, the 2017 cost index is 100, and the latest value shown is about 110.)

City staff also showed the following slide, which says that construction cost inflation has been about 6% a year recently. Over 18 months, that would make cost inflation around 9%, which also is a heck of a lot less than the 36% increase in the police facility construction cost over the last year and a half. 

Now, there might be good reasons why the Salem police facility construction costs rose 36% when general construction costs apparently rose 9-10% over the same 18-month period. But since the Mayor and city councilors chose not to ask City staff about this, I'm worried that the public won't have an answer to an important question.

(3) Why wasn't there a mention of the estimated $9.1 million earmarked for construction cost increases and contingencies? I talked about this money in a previous post.

It's perplexing that City staff didn't mention it when they were describing what was in the "soft costs" part of the police facility budget. Various items were mentioned, but not the line items for cost escalation and unforeseen contingencies.

As shown above,  the "soft costs" remain at $18,581,000, while the new construction budget has become $49,857,530 after $7,591,041 in cost reductions were found in the $57,448,331 current construction cost budget.

Most of the cost reductions came from reducing the size of the police facility from 115,000 square feet to 104,000 square feet, and eliminating a bunch of spaces in the structured parking.

The construction cost per square foot has risen from $367 in the early 2017 plan, to $479 in the current mid-2018 plan.

That's a 31% increase in the cost per square foot, which is close to the 36% increase in the construction costs for a 115,000 square foot police facility with the original amount of structured parking.

This indicates that while police facility planners may have found some construction efficiencies, these weren't major, or the construction cost per square foot wouldn't have risen by 31%.

Here's the bottom line for the police facility, based on what happened at last night's Urban Renewal meeting: 

-- The size of the building now is 9.6% smaller than the 115,000 square foot plan approved by voters in May 2017.
-- The construction cost has risen 18%, even though the building is about 10% smaller. 
-- The construction cost per square foot has risen 31%.
-- The construction cost for a 115,000 square foot building rose 36%.

As I said at the start, questions should have been raised about the discrepancy between general construction costs appearing to rise about 10% over the past 18 months, while the police facility costs rose over three times as much.

I recall that Urban Development Director Kristin Retherford said that she's heard reports of construction costs increasing 1% a month recently. OK, even if we generously assume that rapid rate of increase occurred over the entire 18 months between February 2017 and now, that's still just an approximate 18% jump in construction costs.

Yet the Salem police facility experienced a 36% increase. The question "Why?" deserves an answer. I didn't hear even that question being asked last night, much less the answer.

Everyone makes mistakes. Someone appears to have made a big mistake in estimating the cost of the police facility plan that was submitted to voters in May 2017. A 9.2% cost escalation rate was used in that plan, which seems to be quite close to the actual rate of construction cost inflation. 

Yet City officials have had to scramble to cobble together enough money to pay for a police facility that is 10% smaller than what voters approved. And now the total budget is $70,179,175 rather than $61,814,000, a 14% increase to get 10% less of a police facility.

It sure feels like something went wrong here. But that wasn't evident from the lack of critical questions from the Mayor and city councilors last night. Hopefully those questions will be asked and answered in the days ahead.

Three reasons City Council should think twice about adding $2 million to police facility budget

Nine days ago I argued that the Salem City Council should cut costs to bridge a funding gap facing the yet-to-be-built police facility planned for just north of downtown.

As noted above, in the $63.9 million plan 9.18% was budgeted for escalation, meaning construction inflation. This totaled $4,503,000. There also was a 9% contingency line item of $4,907,000.

So $9,410,000 was set aside for construction cost increases and unforeseen contingencies. It sure seems this should have been enough, so why are City officals asking for $2 million on top of the $9,410,000?

(Note: in my blog post I observed that if the escalation and contingency budgets were reduced proportionately when the police facility budget went from $63.9 million to $61.8 million, this still would leave $9.1 million in those line items.)

Now Salem Community Vision also is questioning using $2 million in urban renewal funds for the police facility. A Facebook post says this money should go toward public access to a greenway path at the far end of the (vast) police facility parking area shown in grey below.

Here's excerpts from the Salem Community Vision post. (I'm a member of the SCV steering committee, but had nothing to do with the post.)

POLICE STATION ... It's getting worse! Today the City released the newest site plan of the police facility for public comments during this next week on the current "Site Plan Review" phase. It is alarming to see the public walkway along the creek has suddenly disappeared.

It shows up faintly as a "future" walkway. Well, we voted for $62 million to build a police station AND we want public access. The recent proposal to use Urban Renewal "downtown revitalization" funds to build the public lobby has been widely criticized. Those funds are for exactly what they say, "revitalization", not for building public buildings.

...It's time for a public outcry. An opportunity for this is next Wednesday evening 6.00 to 7.30 at South Salem High School when the plans will be on display, and staff will be there to hear your comments.

Let's fill in the comments forms and tell them what we think. Or email your councilors at [email protected]t. Let's tell them we want urban renewal "downtown revitalization" funds to be used for the walkway and landscaping and not for the public building construction.

Alternatively email City Planning with your comments, by the end of next week (July 27th) to [email protected].

Combining the good ideas of Salem Community Vision with my own perspective, here's three reasons the City Council should think twice about using $2 million in urban renewal funds to pay for a cost overrun on the police facility construction budget.

(1) A Community Room already was part of the police facility plan. As noted in my blog post, City of Salem staff are claiming that the $2 million will pay for a Community Room and associated restrooms that have been requested by members of the public.

This can't be true, because a Community Room was mentioned in the Voter Pamphlet statement describing the $61.8 million bond measure approved by voters in May 2017. I have no idea why City staff are wrongly claiming that the $2 million would go to a police facility "add-on," when the $61.8 million budget must have included money for a Community Room.

(2) Urban renewal funds should be used for a broad public purpose, not as a "slush fund" to deal with police facility cost overruns. There's been a disturbing trend in downtown urban renewal funds being used for purposes outside of their original intent.

I've heard credible stories of how City officials defer maintenance on downtown parking garages, then use urban renewal money for, say, replacement of  elevators that could have had a longer life if they'd been maintained properly. There also was a disturbing lack of oversight on $749,000 in urban renewal funds that was handed out to T.J. Sullivan's Park Front building for no good reason. 

(The Adobe Spark web page I made, which is featured in the preceding link, has been viewed 6,645 times, so this shows that a lot of people in Salem are interested in how urban renewal funds are used, or in this case, misused.)

So the City Council, which also acts as the board for the Urban Renewal Agency, needs to crack down on misuse of money that should go toward revitalizing downtown, rather than other extraneous uses.

(3) Using $2 million in urban renewal funds for a creekside path does make sense. Given that there's apparently at least $9.1 million for cost escalation and contingencies, the City Council should demand that the police facility be built within the $61.8 million dollar budget approved by voters -- which, as already noted, must have included money for a Community Room and associated public restrooms. 

But I agree with Salem Community Vision that using $2 million, or thereabouts, to fund construction of a path along Mill Creek would be a good use of urban renewal funds, because the path would help to revitalize the north downtown area. Salem doesn't make as much use of urban waterways as it could. This would be a step in the right direction. 

The map above shows a "future path location." Let's make the future now. 

USA Today Premium Editions a new Gannett scam

Oh, I'm so (not) thrilled to learn via a USA Today postcard that came in the mail today that, as of August 1, 2018, my Statesman Journal newspaper subscription will be charged $3 each time an unwanted Premium Edition is delivered to me. 

This is the newest scam being foisted upon us Gannett subscribers, who, here in Salem, Oregon and I presume elsewhere, have had to endure massive subscription rate increases while the quality of the reporting in our local paper steadily declines. 

Here's my blog posts about the rate increases:
Salem Statesman Journal seems to be scamming subscribers
Statesman Journal outrage: New subscribers charged half of what loyal subscribers pay
Cancel your Statesman Journal subscription for 30 days to save $500 a year

Now, to be fair to Statesman Journal staff, who do the best they can while working under the thumb of their evil Gannett Corporation overlords, the rate increases are the responsibility of USA Today executives such as Barbara Smith, VP of Customer Service. 

(That's an ironic title, for sure.)

And so is the Premium Edition scam, as evidenced by the front of the postcard.

I'm calling being charged $3 for every unwanted Premium Edition a scam, but I'm sure USA Today/Gannett attorneys would gleefully point out to me and other hapless subscribers the information on the web page referenced in the "For further details..." section of the postcard. 

Why, who knew that such a web page existed?

Silly me thought that when I signed up for a Monday-Sunday home delivery subscription to the print edition, what I was going to get (and pay for) was a Statesman Journal newspaper every day. But the Subscription Terms, which I bet virtually every subscriber reads as often as the Facebook terms of service, say otherwise. 

So lucky me will be getting an unknown number of Premium Editions throughout the year, starting August 1. The postcard provides a teaser of the subjects that will provide the content for these USA Today collector items.

Which, actually, I won't be collecting, because they'll be thrown in our recycling bin as soon as they arrive.

"America's Landmarks and Hidden Gems"
"A Day of Infamy: December 7, 1941"
"Holiday Magic"

Naturally I was curious about what other Premium Editions USA Today has foisted upon the nation. These are some of the titles that can be bought in the USA Today online store for $4.95, a price that, by an amazing coincidence, happens to be exactly 495 pennies more than I'd be willing to pay for any of them.

"A Royal Wedding: Special Commemorative Edition"
"Billy Graham: 'America's Pastor'"
"Elvis Rocks On"
"Inauguration 2017" 

(That last one would really find its way into the recycling bin, pronto.)

Some Googling led me to the conclusion that these USA Today Premium Editions are a new Gannett scam, since I couldn't find any sign that people have been complaining about them. 

I did, though, find a kindred spirit in Michigan, Rebecca Foster, who has criticized the previous Gannett scam of charging extra for local premium editions. I liked the sarcastic title of a blog post, "'New Premium Edition' will cover local news!"

I just received a postcard about the special "Sunday Premium Edition" of the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.

Apparently, I've "asked for more content relevant to my area" - and it's true I, personally, have grumbled often on social media and in conversation about the lack of actual local coverage, the increasing use of stock Gannett pieces, and the inclusion of USA Today articles and entire sections, as if USA Today was a paper that anyone actually reads outside waiting areas, airports or hotel rooms. But it's not like anyone from Gannett actually asked for my opinion.

My subscription - and it goes on to list what is currently included - will now "include an exclusive, special Sunday premium section on popular local topics four times per year." Except the subscription rate for this "premium edition" will be $1 each, and will be added to my bill. So, really, you are simply increasing my subscription rate to cover the occasional local content that I should be getting from my local paper every day. Right?

A few days later Foster wrote a similar piece for what appears to be an alternative paper in her town. It was called, "Gannett defines 'premium edition' and 'local content' for me; it's an epic fail." Here's a right-on excerpt:

Plenty of people have already bemoaned the decline of print journalism, or even any kind of journalism at all (recently, the Huffington Post proudly declared that they do not pay their bloggers, because paying for writer product somehow makes it less honest). Small community papers, through no fault of their own, get gobbled up by the news conglomerates, and become less of a news outlet and more of a revenue stream for the parent company.

None of which is in the control of the Livingston Daily Press & Argus. But when the “boss” doesn’t give a damn about quality content, then it becomes increasingly difficult to be bothered to provide it at the local level.

Today Trump crossed the line into treason

I'm a lifelong political junkie.

In eighth grade, I remember being the first name in a Hines-Hart poll that asked my fellow classmates whether they thought we were heading for a nuclear war, the poll being taken in the first part of 1962, six months or so before the super-scary Cuban missile crisis involving Russia and the United States. 

(Most thought a war would happen. Thankfully, it didn't.)

But I can't recall any presidential action that comes close to the treasonous behavior Donald Trump exhibited at his press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin today. 

Treason is a shocking word to direct at the president of the United States. I've never heard it used by serious political commentators. But Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, spoke of treason in his opinion piece, "Trump and Putin vs. America."

My fellow Americans, we are in trouble and we have some big decisions to make today. This was a historic moment in the entire history of the United States.

There is overwhelming evidence that our president, for the first time in our history, is deliberately or through gross negligence or because of his own twisted personality engaged in treasonous behavior — behavior that violates his oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Trump vacated that oath today, and Republicans can no longer run and hide from that fact. Every single Republican lawmaker will be — and should be — asked on the election trail: Are you with Trump and Putin or are you with the C.I.A., F.B.I. and N.S.A.?

What Trump did was deny the firm conclusion of federal intelligence agencies that operatives of the Russian government worked to aid the 2016 election of Trump by hacking into Democratic computer systems and using social media to peddle pro-Trump and anti-Clinton propaganda. 

It's astounding that Trump stood beside Putin and defended Russia while denigrating our intelligence agencies. Both the New York Times and Washington Post published "news analysis" stories that marveled at what Trump hath wrought today. 

The Times piece is called "Trump Sheds All Notions of How a President Should Conduct Himself Abroad." That's a fairly mild headline, given Trump's treasonous behavior, but the story is more hard-hitting.

President Trump, who gleefully defies the norms of presidential behavior, went somewhere in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday where none of his predecessors have ever gone: He accepted the explanation of a hostile foreign leader over the findings of his own intelligence agencies.

Mr. Trump’s declaration that he saw no reason not to believe President Vladimir V. Putin when he said the Russians did not try to fix the 2016 election was extraordinary enough. But it was only one of several statements the likes of which no other president has uttered while on foreign soil.

He condemned the Justice Department’s investigation of his campaign’s ties to Russia as a “disaster for our country.” He suggested that the F.B.I. deliberately mishandled its investigation of Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee. And he labeled an F.B.I. agent who testified about that investigation before Congress as a “disgrace to our country.”

In the fiery, disruptive, rules-breaking arc of Mr. Trump’s statecraft, his assertions during a news conference with Mr. Putin marked a new milestone, the foreign policy equivalent of Charlottesville.

Just as Mr. Trump flouted the most deeply held traditions of the American presidency in equating the torch-wielding white nationalist marchers and the activists who fought them last summer in Virginia, he shredded all the accepted conventions in Finland of how a president should conduct himself abroad.

Rather than defend the United States against those who would threaten it, he attacked his own citizens and institutions. Rather than challenge Mr. Putin, an adversary with a well-documented record of wrongdoing against the United States, he praised him without reservation.

His statements were so divorced from American policy goals, so at odds with the rest of his administration, so inexplicable on so many levels that they brought to the surface a question that has long shadowed Mr. Trump: Does Russia have something on him?

The president’s motive, it seemed, was to fight, tooth and claw, for the legitimacy of his victory in the 2016 election. In the process, he impugned the nation’s law enforcement agencies and publicly undermined the consensus view of its intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the campaign. 

The Post piece is called "The moment called for Trump to stand up for America. He chose to bow." 

When the history of Donald Trump’s presidency is ultimately written, July 16, 2018, will have a special entry. On a day when the setting called for a show of strength and resolve from an American president, Trump instead offered deference, defensiveness, equivocation and weakness.

If anyone can recall a performance by a U.S. president that rivaled the one seen around the world Monday, let them come forward. In the meantime, Trump’s extraordinary joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin will stand on its own, for sheer shock value and for the reality of an opportunity lost.

Here was a president turning his back on the collective work of U.S. intelligence agencies, looking the other way at indictments returned last week by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III against 12 Russian military intelligence officers who sought to undermine American democracy during the 2016 election, and falling back as he so often has on attacks against Hillary Clinton, criticism of Democrats and boasts about the size of his electoral college victory.

In reality, he did more than turn his back on the evidence of Russian attacks on the U.S. electoral process. He all but rejected it. In an attempt to say both sides have their views of what happened during the last presidential election, he proffered that his own view is that he can’t bring himself to accept that the Russians did it. “I don’t see any reason why [Russia would interfere],” he said.

Today I heard a commentator talk about what would have happened if, during the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy had done what Trump did today: say that he believed the leader of Russia (Khrushchev, at that time) rather than his own intelligence agencies. 

Calls for impeachment would have come from Republicans, and likely Democrats also.

Yet I suspect that few Republicans will do anything more than mildly criticize Trump's treasonous behavior today, before they go back to salivating over the near-certainty that Trump soon will have appointed two deeply conservative members of the Supreme Court. 

Shameful? Yes. But this normal political behavior is not nearly as disgusting as President Trump kissing up to the leader of Russia, putting his own shallow personal interests above the deep national interest. 

Salem police facility should cut costs, not use urban renewal funds

A headline in a recent Statesman Journal story didn't tell the entire truth about a cost overrun on the $61.8 million police facility Salem voters approved in a May 2017 bond measure election.

The headline, "Salem officials seek extra $2 million as police HQ construction costs rise," makes it sound as if construction cost inflation is the reason City officials are wanting $2 million to be allocated from urban renewal funds to fund additional police facility costs.

But there already was $4.5 million in the police facility budget earmarked for 9.2% worth of cost escalation due to construction inflation. So the additional money being requested seems to show that cost overruns are the problem, not an increase in construction costs, which appear to have risen less than 10% since the bond measure was passed.

Above is a chart I shared in a February 2017 blog post that shows cost figures for the $63.9 million police facility plan, which the City Council reduced to $61.8 million. (The chart also shows an alternative plan proposed by Salem Community Vision.)

As noted above, in the $63.9 million plan 9.18% was budgeted for escalation, meaning construction inflation. This totaled $4,503,000. There also was a 9% contingency line item of $4,907,000.

So $9,410,000 was set aside for construction cost increases and unforeseen contingencies. It sure seems this should have been enough, so why are City officals asking for $2 million on top of the $9,410,000?

I don't have the $61.8 million budget. That's 3.3% less than the original $63.9 million budget. If the escalation and contingency line items were reduced proportionately, there still would be $9.1 million set aside for construction inflation and unforeseen expenses.

So again, why ask for $2 million more?

Members of the City Council need to dig into the rationale being given for the $2 million request. The Statesman Journal story says, somewhat confusingly, since this is at odds with the headline:

As city officials try to make the place more useful to locals, the largest chunk of the July request — $1,197,000 — is poised to pay for a big community room at the station. Other expenses include public restrooms ($398,000), a plaza ($250,000) and artwork ($240,000), bringing the grand total to $2.085 million.

But the description of Measure 24-420, the $61.8 million bond measure, in the May 2017 Voter Pamphlet says that a "community meeting space" was already included in the budget.

So since a community room already was in the budget, seemingly with associated restrooms, let's go back to construction cost inflation as the reason for the police facility cost overrun. 

The chart above shows the three line items, A, B, C, that constitute construction costs: Building construction, parking structure construction, and site and demolition construction. In the original $63.9 million budget, these items totaled $40,021,000. If those line items were reduced proportionately, they would have totaled $38,700,000 in the $61.8 million budget.

A Statesman Journal editorial in today's paper, "City seeking extra $2 million to build new police facility is disappointing," says that construction costs now are estimated to be $57 million. This can't be true, since they were only $40 million in the original budget, and it's hard to believe that construction costs have inflated by over 40% in a year and a half or so.

I can't help observing that I and others who were opposed to an overpriced and overlarge police facility argued that about 100,000 square feet would be plenty. City officials argued, "No, experts say we need at least 115,000 square feet!"

Well, now it appears that the experts were wrong and we were right. Here's an excerpt from the Statesman Journal story:

"Taking increasing costs into consideration, the size of the police facility is also being slimmed down from about 115,000 square feet to about 104,000 square feet, without major program sacrifices, Dannen said."

It's good to see that City officials have realized that the Police Department can be fine with a 104,000 square foot building. However, I agree with the Statesman Journal editorial board that using $2 million in urban renewal funds to fill a supposed budget gap isn't a wise idea.

Urban renewal dollars are taxpayer-funded dollars. Voters didn't approve the bond measure with a caveat that it was OK to take an additional couple million from the URA fund.

It should bother residents that if the Urban Renewal Agency Board approves the additional $2 million, there will be fewer funds for other riverfront projects. The Riverfront-Downtown area has about a $4 million budget.

Isn't that money supposed to be used for street improvements, and loans and grants for others who want to improve their land or buildings and rid areas of blight? 

Answer, "yes," according to the City of Salem's own web site.

Using $2 million of Urban Renewal funds for cost overruns on a police facility doesn't remove blight, improve property values, or leverage private investment. It just bails the City of Salem out of a failure to budget properly for police facility construction.

The Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger has a much better idea: eliminate structured parking on the police facility site entirely. Here's an excerpt from "Save $2M? Ditch the costly structured parking!"

Still, the City should consider further cutting the structured parking and using nearby surface lots or the Marion Parkade. At $25,000 to $50,000 a stall, there's a good amount of savings there for space and structure that just sits with car storage.

The Statesman Journal story says that City officials already are planning to reduce the number of structured parking spaces from 100 to 70. 

Here's an idea: reduce them to zero.

The budget above shows that 100 stalls were estimated to cost $2,645,000, or $26,450 per stall. So eliminating the 70 planned structured parking spaces would save about $1,850,000, eliminating the need to use $2 million in urban renewal funds.

My understanding is that there's enough room on the site for surface parking. The main rationale I heard for structured parking was that officers going on patrol could exit directly from the second floor of the police facility to their cars, thereby eliminating the need to haul a heavy "duty bag" downstairs (and upstairs, on a return trip). 

Is this enough reason to take $2 million from urban renewal funds? The City Council will have to decide. I'm with the Breakfast on Bikes blogger in saying, no. 

Peter Strzok is an FBI hero. Republicans who attacked him today are cowards.

Today I got obsessed. Then, angry. After that, more obsessed. And then, angrier still. 

What got my emotions so fired up was FBI deputy assistant director Peter Strzok's compelling testimony before a House hearing.  

The Republicans in charge of the hearing convened by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees sought to undermine the Mueller investigation by making Strzok into a rogue anti-Trump FBI agent, but anyone with an open mind who watched this debacle would have to conclude that they failed abysmally. 

Strzok is notorious for exchanging text messages with another FBI employee, Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.

Some of the messages were deeply critical of Trump, a sentiment shared by well over half of American voters, judging by the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election.

As was noted over and over by Strzok and House Democrats, a Justice Department Inspector General report found no evidence that Strzok exhibited any official bias in favor of Hillary Clinton or against Donald Trump in the course of his FBI work on investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Clinton's email server.

But Republicans ignored this inconvenient fact, asserting over and over in the total absence of any evidence that his animus toward Trump influenced his FBI work. 

I watched a good share of the hearing on my iPhone via a Washington Post video feed. It was both astoundingly entertaining and deeply disturbing. I didn't need any convincing on this, but it solidified my belief that our country is on the knife-edge between democracy and authoritarianism.

Heroes like Strzok, who has conducted anti-espionage investigations at the FBI for over 20 years, if I recall correctly, are the good guys fighting to preserve our democratic institutions against attacks from Russia and other totalitarian countries.

Meanwhile, Trump is acting to undermine our nation's longstanding bipartisan commitment to democracy, open and fair elections, and the protection of our American way of life from enemies foreign and domestic. Which, judging by how GOP House members acted today, includes almost every Republican member of Congress.

Yeah, I realize that's a harsh statement. But it's absolutely true.

The only legislators I heard defending the FBI, the Mueller investigation into Russian election tampering, and continued efforts to fight foreign meddling in the 2018 midterms were Democrats. Republicans have become cowardly Trump sycophants, scared to speak up in favor of law enforcement, democracy, and the values the United States has had since our nation's founding.

Today I kept waiting to hear a single Republican make sense, to have the guts to resist their mindless desire to shield Trump from being held accountable for possible illegal acts, to put country above party. 

I listened to the hearing for way longer than I'd intended at first, because I found it hard to believe that conservative members of Congress could be so blind to their refusal to see things with Strzok and the FBI as they are, rather than how they imagine them to be. 

Eventually I shut off the Washington Post video feed, because I got tired of the crap being spewed from the mouths of Republicans that had no basis in reality.

Strzok came across as calm, honest, open, willing to admit mistakes when this was warranted, proudly defending himself when attacks on his professionalism crossed the line from valid questioning to partisan hatchet jobs. I don't see how anyone could watch Strzok's performance today as anything other than a proud FBI agent responding to disgusting political posturing with great poise and honesty.

Read Strzok's opening remarks. His written words don't convey the emotional persuasiveness that his testimony today did, but they're convincing nonetheless. Below is a key excerpt.

In it Strzok points out that if he truly wanted to prevent Trump from becoming president, he could have leaked information about the FBI investigation into possible connections of the Trump campaign with Russian election meddling.

But he didn't do this, showing more professionalism that Jim Comey did, when he twice made statements about the Clinton email server investigation shortly before election day, likely costing Clinton the presidency. Strzok said:

I testify today with significant regret, recognizing that my texts have created confusion and caused pain for people I love. Certain private messages of mine have provided ammunition for misguided attacks against the FBI, an institution I love deeply and have served proudly for more than 20 years.

I am eager to answer your questions, but let me first directly address those much-talked about texts.

 

Like many people, I had and expressed personal political opinions during an extraordinary Presidential election. Many contained expressions of concern for the security of our country -- opinions that were not always expressed in terms I am proud of.

But having worked in national security for two decades and proudly served in the U.S. Army, those opinions were expressed out of deep patriotism and an unyielding belief in our great American democracy. At times my criticism was blunt, but despite how it’s been characterized, it was not limited to one person or one party – I criticized various countries and politicians, including Secretary Clinton, Senator Sanders, then-candidate Trump and others.

But let me be clear, unequivocally and under oath: not once in my 26 years of defending my nation did my personal opinions impact any official action I took.

This is true for the Clinton email investigation, for the investigation into Russian interference, and for every other investigation I’ve worked on. It is not who I am, and it is not something I would ever do. Period.

I understand that my sworn testimony will not be enough for some people. After all, Americans are skeptical of anything they hear out of Washington. But the fact is, after months of investigations, there is simply no evidence of bias in my professional actions.

There is, however, one extraordinarily important piece of evidence supporting my integrity, the integrity of the FBI, and our lack of bias.

In the summer of 2016, I was one of a handful of people who knew the details of Russian election interference and its possible connections with members of the Trump campaign. This information had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.

That’s what FBI agents do every single day, and it’s why I am so proud of the Bureau. And I am particularly proud of the work that I, and many others, did on the Clinton email investigation. Our charge was to investigate it competently, honestly, and independently, and that is exactly what happened.

I’m also proud of our work on the Russian interference investigation. This is an investigation into a direct attack by a foreign adversary – and it is no less so simply because it was launched against our democratic process rather than against a military base. This is something that all Americans, of all political persuasions, should be alarmed by.

In the summer of 2016, we had an urgent need to protect the integrity of an American Presidential election from a hostile foreign power determined to weaken and divide the United States of America. This investigation is not politically motivated, it is not a witch hunt, it is not a hoax.

Liberals, let's not despair. There's hope beyond the Supreme Court.

Driving home from my Tai Chi class in downtown Salem, usually after 6 pm I listen to MSNBC on my car's satellite radio. But when I tuned in today I heard President Trump's voice, announcing his second Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh. 

I quickly switched channels. The Classic Vinyl station is a good escape for me. I lucked out and heard John Lennon singing "Give Peace a Chance." 

Way better than hearing Trump blab on about Kavanaugh's credentials. Ordinarily I'd be interested in listening to a president announce who is being nominated for a Supreme Court seat, but Trump's presidency is anything but ordinary.

By some 70,000 votes in a few states he won the Electoral College, while being trounced in the popular vote.

If Comey hadn't broken Justice Department precedent by twice talking about the nothing-burger investigation into Clinton's email server, and if Russia hadn't meddled in the election (possibly colluding with the Trump campaign), almost certainly we'd have the first woman president, and a liberal-leaning Supreme Court.

So I had zero interest in listening to an illegitimate president talk about his sullied Supreme Court nomination.

However, I'm very much interested in how us liberals (progressives, if you prefer that term) handle the depressing fact that almost certainly Kavanaugh is going to be confirmed by the Senate prior to the November mid-terms, thereby turning the Supreme Court more conservative than it is now, because Kavanaugh is more conservative than the judge he replaces, Anthony Kennedy.

One approach is to take an it could have been worse attitude.

I felt mildly better about Kavanaugh after reading an opinion piece, "A Liberal's Case for Brett Kavanaugh," by a Yale law school professor, Akhil Amar, who touts Kavanaugh's credentials and legal acumen. 

The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be the next Supreme Court justice is President Trump’s finest hour, his classiest move. Last week the president promised to select “someone with impeccable credentials, great intellect, unbiased judgment, and deep reverence for the laws and Constitution of the United States.” In picking Judge Kavanaugh, he has done just that.

In 2016, I strongly supported Hillary Clinton for president as well as President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland. But today, with the exception of the current justices and Judge Garland, it is hard to name anyone with judicial credentials as strong as those of Judge Kavanaugh. He sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (the most influential circuit court) and commands wide and deep respect among scholars, lawyers and jurists.

OK. But Amar's piece left me feeling like I would if a doctor told me that I should be pleased that the cancer they found would kill me in two years rather than two months. Great. But I'd rather not have terminal cancer at all.

So here's a more positive opinion piece I came across in the New York Times, "This is No Time for Liberal Despair" by David Leonhardt. He makes three points that I agree with, though I can understand why many liberals will take issue with some of what Leonhardt says.

Step one: Be realistic.

Trump’s nominee is overwhelmingly likely to be confirmed regardless of what actions Democrats take. Republicans hold the Senate majority, and every Republican senator — yes, including Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — has a history of voting for judges like those Trump is considering. Collins and Murkowski have a script: They make centrist-sounding statements, to shore up their images, and then vote aye.

So Democrats should go into the confirmation debate recognizing that it is almost certainly unwinnable.

...Step two: Don’t lose hope.

The Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol has spent decades studying political power and change, from the Civil War to the Tea Party and anti-Trump resistance. She believes that Kennedy’s retirement can be a clarifying moment for American liberals.

...Remember, too, the limits of the court’s power. On some big issues, the court is not imposing right-wing policies on the entire country. It is instead refusing to ban state-based right-wing policies — like abortion restrictions and partisan gerrymandering — that progressives consider unconstitutional.

...Progressives can still win many of these issues. They simply will have to do so in a small-d democratic way, by winning elections — as they’ve begun to do lately. If Democrats win more governorships and state legislatures, they can keep Republicans from drawing ridiculous congressional maps and infringing on African-Americans’ voting rights — among many other things. If Democrats retake Congress this fall, they can halt the Republican legislative agenda and gain subpoena power.

...Step three: Know your strengths.

Some Democrats will be tempted to turn the next two months into a national conversation about abortion, affirmative action and other social issues that inspire liberal passion. That would be a mistake. Those are not the best issues for Democrats during a midterm campaign.

The best issues are those on which Democrats hold a decisive advantage in public opinion. Health insurance is a good example. So are taxation, corporate power and the Trump administration’s corruption. All of these issues can be grist for a nominee’s Senate hearing.

I’m not suggesting that Democratic senators ignore social issues. They just shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that the country is further to the left than it is.

My favorite part of Leonhardt's advice was his reminder that much of what the Supreme Court rules on involves what states are allowed to do. 

For example, it seems more likely that a Trump-packed Supreme Court would allow states to ban abortion, as opposed to the Court banning abortion nationally. So liberal-leaning states like Oregon, where I live, would continue to have permissive abortion statutes. 

Polling shows that a majority of Americans favor Democratic positions on health insurance, gun control, environmental protection, carbon pollution, LBGTQ rights, keeping abortion legal, and other key issues. So even if the Supreme Court ends up allowing states to enact conservative laws on these issues, likely that would be unpopular in even right-leaning states, producing a backlash.

I recognize that Leonhardt's arguments won't totally soothe the pain liberals feel at Trump being able to fill two Supreme Court seats. But he does show a way out of the darkness that Trump is casting: work hard to win elections at the state and local level, then take back the presidency in 2020.