Salem Political Snark

Tom Andersen: progressivism is alive and well in Salem

I'm a proud progressive. I'm a member of Progressive Salem. I enjoy hearing City Councilor Tom Andersen speak. And I like the food at the Marco Polo restaurant a lot. 


So today it was great to mix those pleasures together and listen to Andersen talk about the past, present, and future of local progressivism at the first Progressive Salem Power Lunch meeting while munching on a tasty Marco Polo buffet meal.

If you're a conservative wondering if I'm going to share any inside political secrets, I'm sorry to disappoint you. But I hope you'll read this blog post anyway.

Andersen did refer several times to "Trumpism's emotional illogic." However, he also stressed the need for elected officials of all political persuasions to work together on making Salem a better place.

I heartily agreed with his call to make "livability, livability, livability" our mantra, rather than "jobs, jobs, jobs."

Jobs, after all, are a means to an end: livability. And that end will draw in more businesses and jobs, since livability is a key factor in why a company decides to locate in one city rather than another. Chasing warehouse jobs, such as those to be offered by an Amazon distribution center, shouldn't be our highest goal. 

Andersen is a proponent of giving City Council members a monthly stipend, since currently they are unpaid. This restricts the ability of people to seek to become a city councilor. He noted that 28% of Salem residents are non-Caucasian, 18% are below the poverty line, and the average household income here is $49,000.

So a stipend would make it more likely that the City Council reflects the diversity of Salem. Currently, it doesn't. The City Council has rejected the stipend idea on a 7-2 vote. Likely Andersen will keep pushing it, since it seems like a desirable thing to do.

He was the lone Progressive Salem-backed councilor when elected in 2014. As he put it, "organized people beat organized money." That formula has been successful ever since, with progressives now being a 6-3 majority on the City Council following the election of Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, Matt Ausec, Chris Hoy, and Jackie Leung. 

What a difference five years makes. Elections matter.

Running unopposed for re-election in 2018, Andersen joked that he was disappointed to only get 99% of the vote. Someone did write in the name of his wife, Jessica Maxwell. It could have been Andersen himself, though,

He talked about his disappointment at not being able to have the streetlight fee made more equitable. Currently a homeowner pays $2.80 a month, and Walmart (along with other businesses) pays $13.50 a month. When Andersen suggested doubling that latter fee to $27 a month, he was accused of being anti-business.

Pretty clearly he isn't. Andersen spoke about the generally good job SEDCOR (Strategic Economic Development Corporation) is doing locally. He said that 85% of their money/time is spent on retaining and strengthening homegrown businesses.

Given the new progressive majority on the City Council, developers appear to be keeping this political reality in mind, sometimes asking themselves, "Do we want to bring our project to the Council?" This is a good thing, as it encourages dialogue and cooperation with people affected by a proposed development.

One example is a residential development on Wiltsey Road in Jackie Leung's ward that now is going to save more white oaks than was originally planned after Leung asked to have the project reviewed by the City Council rather than being rubber-stamped on the "Consent Calendar."

I've written about another example, a proposal for an apartment complex on the Sustainable Fairview property that the Heritage School wanted some changes made to.

Perhaps because the developer was aware that the City Council rejected a controversial relocation of Costco, Andersen said that Mountain West has agreed to make some changes to their development that the Heritage School is pleased with. So a willingness to compromise headed off a contentious hearing before the City Council.

Likely this wouldn't have happened if progressives weren't a 6-3 majority on the Council. Here's some other accomplishments during Andersen's first term as a councilor that he mentioned in his talk today.

-- Salem is officially an "Inclusive City."
-- Supported DACA and Dreamers.
-- Opposed the Trump administration's border plan and Measure 105.
-- Voted to develop an Environmental Action Plan for Salem.
-- Defeated a sit/lie ordinance.
-- Said no to the Salem River Crossing project.
-- Established a downtown Congestion Relief Task Force.
-- Banned most plastic bags in grocery stores.
-- Increased system development charges to pay for new parks and traffic improvements.

During a Q & A period following his talk, Andersen said that progress is being made on homelessness, though much more remains to be done. Eighty-three of the 100 homeless people identified as most in need of help are being housed. Other measures are being implemented, such as providing a place for the homeless to store their belongings.

He noted that the "engine" driving the homeless problem is income/wealth inequality -- which obviously is impossible to solve at the local level.

Regarding the Salem River Crossing or Third Bridge, Andersen said this was a regional problem that tried to be solved locally (meaning, Salem residents were going to be expected to pay most of the bill for a half billion dollar regional bridge). Now it's time for proponents and opponents of the Third Bridge to move forward together on better ways to deal with transportation problems in our area. 

Since the books in the Salem Library will need to be removed when seismic retrofitting and other renovations begin, someone in the audience suggested that the old Book Bin building on Lancaster Drive be used as a temporary library -- which could remain as a branch library. 

Lastly, the Progressive Salem lunch meeting ended with someone thanking Councilor Andersen for the countless (almost) hours he puts in on public service. 

"There's no way I'd do this for free," the person said. Me neither, I thought.

Third Bridge talked about in three acts last night

Driving home from the West Salem Neighborhood Association meeting last night, I pondered the weirdly wonderful discussion of how the City Council killed the Third Bridge on February 11, and what to do next about downtown-area traffic congestion.

Troy Brynelson of the Salem Reporter wrote a good story about the meeting, "After splitting on third bridge, councilors seek common ground in West Salem." Excerpt:

Salem City Councilors Cara Kaser and Jim Lewis bridged some political differences Monday night, pledging to work together to solve the city’s congestion woes after staking opposing views last week about the Salem River Crossing.

The two are the only councilors whose wards fan over West Salem, home to some of the most vocal supporters of the third bridge.

Kaser joined five other councilors in voting against the project and found herself the subject of social media murmurs of a recall. But she shrugged it off, saying she heard more kudos than condemnation.

“Of course there were people who were negative toward me, but the thank yous outweighed the people who were upset,” said Kaser, elected in 2016.

Being a blogger, I'm going to take a more personal approach in describing the meeting -- which struck me as being somewhat akin to a three-act play with different plot lines in each portion of the production. 

Act 1: Salem Bridge Solutions fails to read the crowd. 
After dealing with some other business, Jim Allhiser, the chair of the neighborhood association, opened up discussion of the City Council decision to kill the Salem River Crossing, or Third Bridge, project on a 6-3 vote. His initial remarks were warm and fuzzy, saying "We're all neighbors. We all want to do what's best for the community."

But things went downhill from there. Way downhill. 

His first mistake was to fail to mention that a propaganda PowerPoint presentation was going to be shown.

After silently fumbling at his computer in an attempt to get it going, eventually it started to play, with an eerily disembodied voice singing the praises of the Third Bridge and insulting the six councilors who dared to bring this Billion Dollar Boondoggle to a well-deserved end.

As false statements about the bridge project began to multiply, the audience grew restless. Many people were there to support Councilor Kaser and her five progressive colleagues on the City Council who voted against proceeding with a Third Bridge.

Apparently Mike Evans, co-leader of Salem Bridge Solutions, who created the presentation, assumed that most of those attending the neighborhood association meeting would have their (metaphorical) pitchforks out, prepared to skewer Kaser and the other bridge-denying councilors.

This is the problem with a canned presentation.

If Evans or another Third Bridge supporter had been standing at the podium and speaking live, they would have seen and sensed that a large proportion of the crowd wasn't there to praise them. This screenshot of a recording of the meeting shows only two people wearing the iconic green Salem Bridge Solutions t-shirts -- the Evans brothers. 

Quite a change from the February 11 City Council meeting, which featured a sea of green.

So last night got off to a shaky start from the perspective of Salem Bridge Solutions. Act 1 ended with Third Bridge supporters having to deal with the aftermath of a recorded slide show presentation that got bad reviews from about half of the audience.

Act 2: Mostly polite dialogue replaces one-sided propaganda.
With the Salem Bridge Solutions slide show debacle out of the way, Allhiser did a good job introducing people who had signed up to speak for a maximum of three minutes about how they felt about the City Council decision to kill the bridge.

I didn't count the number for and against that decision. My impression is that more were for the Third Bridge, but not dramatically more.

Opponents of the Salem River Crossing made good points, as did supporters of the project. This was a welcome change from the Salem Bridge Solutions approach of talking loudly with no serious attempts at finding common ground with those opposed to the Third Bridge.

Mike Evans did speak for three minutes in his typically annoying manner.

He referred to the six councilors as "a few misguided people who call themselves progressives." Evans also said his group was ready to recall all or some of the councilors, along with engaging in an effort to make West Salem its own city.

Here's some of the things people said that elicited a right-on inside my head when I heard them:

-- The City of Salem should put a halt to further housing developments in West Salem until infrastructure catches up to population growth in that area.

-- Dreams of getting a lot of money from the state legislature for a new bridge need to be tempered by the fact that a Columbia River Crossing project to replace the I-5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver will be a higher priority.

-- Making the Center Street bridge earthquake-safe needs to occur as soon as possible now that the Salem River Crossing project is dead.

-- The recommendations of the City of Salem's Congestion Relief Task Force will help traffic flow more smoothly across the two current bridges at a relatively low cost.

-- Marine Drive needs to be constructed now that it no longer can be viewed as part of the Third Bridge project.

Act 3: Elected officials show that a disagreement doesn't equal discord.
There were quite a few elected officials at the meeting: Salem city councilors Jim Lewis and Cara Kaser; Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett; State representative Paul Evans; and a Polk County commissioner whose name I didn't get. (May have forgotten some others.)

Lewis and Bennett spoke about how disappointed they were with the decision to kill the Third Bridge.

However, they weren't bitter or insulting like Mike Evans of Salem Bridge Solutions was. Pleasingly, they expressed a willingness to work with opponents of the Third Bridge to find common ground on moving forward with a different sort of new bridge project. 

The Salem Reporter story says:

The two councilors and Mayor Chuck Bennett joined more than 100 people in attending the West Salem Neighborhood Association meeting Monday night at the West Salem Roth’s conference center, eager to debate the city’s congestion problems and solutions old and new.

After listening to citizens speak, all three officials took the chance to say they hoped to work together on new ideas.

 “I’m willing to work with anyone — anyone — who is committed to help address our mobility and congestion issues via an additional bridge across the Willamette River,” Lewis said.

“I really am encouraged. I think you can count on Lewis and Kaser and the other councilors to move forward on this,” said Bennett. “We’ve got a ways to go but I hope we can keep talking about it. I really hope you stay engaged.”

Kudos to Jim Lewis and Chuck Bennett for being so positive, given the pain they felt at seeing the demise of a project they strongly believed in. I found their remarks to be honest, forthright, and inspiring. 

Which I guess isn't all that surprising, because elected officials are different from the rest of us in these politically polarized times. Meaning, they have to sit in a room and work closely with individuals they disagree with -- while others interested in politics can sit in their corner of the political spectrum with like-minded people.

Bottom line: I walked away from the neighborhood association meeting feeling way more positive than when I walked in.

I was expecting more discord than actually transpired. Once Act 1 was over, the rest of the meeting featured people with a wide variety of views about a new bridge across the Willamette who generally spoke politely without demonizing the other side.

It's too early to say whether Paul Evans' proposal for a regional Special Bridge District will turn out to be a viable way to move forward with planning for a wiser approach to a new bridge. But it may be. I agreed with what I recall Cara Kaser saying: we need another bridge, but it should be outside of Salem.

Meaning, a regional bridge funded by people in several counties. A major problem with the Salem River Crossing was that it was intended to be a regional bridge, yet with Salem residents being expected to foot most of the cost to build it. 

Before last night's meeting I thought it would be a losing proposition for Salem Bridge Solutions to attempt a recall of one, some, or all of the six city councilors who voted to kill the Third Bridge.

Now I'm even more convinced of this. There's considerable enthusiasm for exploring a different sort of new bridge across the Willamette. Embarking on recalls would be a major distraction from this effort, with little chance of success.

Lastly, I recall someone expressing surprise that suddenly progressive members of the City Council are sounding all positive about another bridge across the Willamette, after being so opposed to the Salem River Crossing project.

But that sentiment was on display at the February 11 council meeting, where "I'm in favor of a bridge, just not this bridge" was heard fairly frequently.

Which reminds me of my divorce from my first wife, Susan, in 1989. After we split up, I got married again -- and soon. After all, I was in favor of being married (as was Susan), just not to this person. 

Salem Bridge Solutions should think twice about recalling city councilors

Well, notwithstanding the title of this blog post, actually Salem Bridge Solutions should think more than twice about the wisdom of attempting to recall the six progressive members of the City Council who voted to kill the Salem River Crossing project last Monday.

I'll describe the more-than-two reasons below.

First, though, let's look at some evidence that Salem Bridge Solutions, a group that's pushed hard (fanatically, even) for a Third Bridge across the Willamette truly is seriously considering embarking on recall efforts. 

A post on the Salem Bridge Solutions Facebook page brings up the subject of recall elections.

One person then questions why this should be pursued given the September 30, 2019 deadline for completing an Environmental Impact Statement -- which was going to be difficult to meet even if the City Council had voted to continue on with the bridge project last Monday.

Another person then leaves a comment that shows the motive of some Salem Bridge Solutions supporters is revenge, not getting the bridge built.

Mike Evans is one of the leaders of Salem Bridge Solutions. He tells another commenter that the group will be organizing to make recalls happen.

The recall kickoff is a West Salem Neighborhood Association meeting on Monday, February 18. It's questionable that this sort of blatant political organizing is allowed by the City of Salem ordinance governing neighborhood associations, but I'll leave this issue aside.

So now let's turn to what Salem Bridge Solutions should consider before it commits to attempting to recall some or all of the six city councilors who aroused their ire.

(1) Only three councilors currently can be recalled. The state Elections Division Recall Manual says that a local office holder can't be recalled until six months of their current term has expired. Progressive councilors Tom Andersen, Chris Hoy, and Jackie Leung were elected in 2018 and their terms began in January 2019. 

So they couldn't be recalled until sometime in July.

That leaves councilors Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, and Matt Ausec -- who were elected in 2016. If Salem Bridge Solutions wants to shift the balance of power on the City Council, two progressives need to be replaced by two bridge supporters, which would turn the recent 6-3 vote against the Third Bridge to a 5-4 vote in favor of it. 

(2) How liberal are the wards of the three recallable councilors? Salem Bridge Solutions needs to remember that Salem leans decidedly leftward, based on the results of the last presidential election (Clinton won in each of the eight wards).

Using Clinton's winning percentage as a proxy for how liberal a ward is, Cara Kaser and Tom Andersen represent the most left-leaning areas of Salem (tied for #1). Sally Cook represents the next most liberal ward (#2), followed by Chris Hoy's and Brad Nanke's wards (tied for #3), Matt Ausec's ward (#4), Jim Lewis's ward (#5), and Jackie Leung's ward (#6). 

Thus it would be tough for the conservative Salem Bridge Solutions group to win two of three recall elections among the councilors currently eligible to be recalled. Plus, I suspect many voters wouldn't take kindly to recall efforts aimed at two of the three women on the nine-member City Council (Mayor Bennett is the ninth). 

Councilor Ausec seemingly would be the group's best shot at a recall victory. But even so...
(3) A replacement election would follow any successful recalls. Above is what I found on the City of Salem web site regarding vacancies on the City Council.

The two sections don't make sense, perhaps because of a typo. Seemingly one section should refer to what happens if a vacancy occurs more than one year to the next primary election, and the other section should refer to what happens if a vacancy occurs less than one year to the next primary election.

But both sections speak of "more." Which is confusing.

Logically it seems that a special election would be required if there's more than a year to the next primary election, and a majority of the City Council would appoint a replacement if there is less than a year to the next primary election.

Regardless, Salem Bridge Solutions needs to keep in mind the possibility that even if they're successful in recalling one progressive councilor, that still would leave a progressive majority on the Council that might be able to appoint a temporary successor.

And if a special election is held, obviously there's no guarantee that a pro-bridge candidate would be elected.

(4) It'd be a tough sell to argue why a councilor should be recalled. The Recall Manual says that a petition to recall a local elected official has to state the reason, which appears on the recall ballot along with a statement from the official about why they should remain in office. 

Good luck with that, Salem Bridge Solutions.

Each of the six progressives on the City Council made a commitment to oppose a Third Bridge during their election campaign. Last Monday these councilors fulfilled that pledge. I deeply doubt that voters are going to consider that keeping a campaign promise is a recallable offense. 

Salem Bridge Solutions seems to live in a political bubble of their own making that reflects their own passionate desire to have the Salem River Crossing, or Third Bridge, built at a cost of half a billion dollars or so -- which almost certainly would require tolls on both the new bridge and the two current bridges, plus increases in various taxes.

But they need to remember that other people in Salem are just as passionate about other things. Such as, not building a wasteful bridge that studies show wouldn't reduce congestion, just shift it from one part of town to another. Tom Andersen made the case against the Salem River Crossing in this video of his remarks at last Monday's City Council meeting.

And people also are passionate about not having elected officials removed from office for no good reason. Which gets me to my last reason...

(5) Pushback against recalls would be powerful. I know how strongly my fellow liberals feel about their hard work over a series of City Council elections paying off with a 6-3 progressive majority on the council. Believe me, they will not react meekly to recall attempts by a conservative single-issue group, Salem Bridge Solutions.

Especially since Salem Bridge Solutions didn't support any candidates in the 2018 election other than incumbent councilor Jim Lewis.

Tom Andersen and Chris Hoy were unopposed in their re-election campaigns. If Salem Bridge Solutions wants to win votes in the City Council, they need to do it the old fashioned way: by winning elections, not by trying to recall people who won their council seats fair and square.

I also suspect that independents and even many Republicans would react strongly against recall efforts whose only basis is that a public official voted in accord with a campaign promise. People can smell unfairness a mile away, and what Salem Bridge Solutions is considering doing reeks of it. 

Even more lastly... just noticed a Facebook post by State Representative Paul Evans that shares a press release from his office regarding a proposed formation of a bridge district in Marion, Polk, Linn, and Yamhill counties. This is the sort of positive effort that Salem Bridge Solutions should be focused on -- not on the negativity of recall elections.

Time for Chuck Bennett and Jim Lewis to do some bridge building

Let's be clear: By "bridge building" I don't mean constructing a Third Bridge in Salem across the Willamette River. That project died last Monday night when the City Council voted 6-3 to kill it. 

What I'm talking about in the title of this blog post is what happens next in Salem.

Ideally, those fervently in favor of the now-defunct Salem River Crossing project and those fervently opposed to it will come together to work on ways to reduce rush hour congestion in the downtown area that don't involve spending upwards of half a billion dollars on another bridge. 

This effort should include lobbying efforts at the State Capitol to make sure that the money already earmarked for making the Center Street bridge earthquake-safe is spent on this as soon as possible. 

But I'm worried that this isn't going to happen without some serious work by Mayor Chuck Bennett and Councilor Jim Lewis (who represents most of West Salem) to channel the anger of the Salem Bridge Solutions folks in a positive direction. 

Earlier today Salem Bridge Solutions, the group that has been pushing hardest for a Third Bridge, put up a Facebook post that is pretty much the exact opposite of what needs to happen. 

Now, I readily admit there's a chance (albeit seemingly a slim one) that "fixing this travesty" and "organizing something soon" could mean something other than, say, working on a recall of all or some of the six progressive city councilors who voted against continuing on with the Salem River Crossing Project. 

But a recall is mentioned in some of the comments on this post. And so far the Evans brothers haven't shown themselves to be anything other than single-minded passionate -- fanatic might be a better word -- advocates for a Third Bridge. 

Michael Slater wrote a right-on Facebook post today over on the page where City Council goings-on are discussed. I urge you to read it, because Slater nailed it in what he called "The 5 Reasons the Bridge Advocates Lost." Here's number 2 and 3. I corrected a few typos.

2. They didn't build any bridges. Ironically for a group advocating a bridge, they did not work hard to build bridges to voters in other wards. You know, the people that would have to help pay for the bridge. Their advocacy was an inside game of lobbying and pressuring the City Council members. Bridge leaders ran no radio or cable ads, sent no mail, and knocked (to my knowledge) on no doors in wards outside of ward 8. If you want a community to spend $400 million plus to help you out of your (traffic) jam, it's best to persuade them to support by explaining why they have either a moral responsibility or self-interested reason to do so. Bridge advocates didn't bother.

3. Their leadership was divisive and bullying. The Evans brothers became the face of the Build the Bridge effort. They came across as mean, bullying, and disruptive. Yes, some people can get away with that (again, think DC), but it didn't play in Salem. Enough said.

Today someone told me that Councilor Cara Kaser is planning on coming to the February 18 West Salem Neighborhood Association meeting publicized in the Salem Bridge Solutions post (that group engineered a takeover of the association, so now controls the agenda).

Since Kaser was singled out for special criticism because she represents part of West Salem, the person who told me she was coming to the meeting worried that she might need police protection. Hopefully this worry was overblown.

Regardless, I'm hoping that both Mayor Bennett and Councilor Lewis will do what they can between now and February 18 to urge the leaders/members of Salem Bridge Solutions to work cooperatively with all of the City Council -- including the six progressives who voted against the Salem River Crossing proposal -- to find common ground.

A City of Salem task force has come up with numerous ways to reduce rush-hour congestion in the downtown area. Salem Bridge Solutions should involve itself with making those improvements a reality. And there's considerable openness toward exploring a different location for a new bridge.

Sure, it will take many years for another bridge project to come to fruition. But backers of the Salem River Crossing need to come to grips with the fact that it is dead. Nothing will bring it back to life, including attempts to recall the councilors who voted against it.

Hopefully both Mayor Bennett and Councilor Lewis will come to the February 18 West Salem Neighborhood Association meeting. They should sit next to Councilor Kaser and vow to work with her, and with her progressive colleagues, on ways to address the traffic concerns raised at last Monday's City Council meeting.

Some of those concerns were valid. Some weren't. Through respectful open discussion, people in Salem can do their best to bridge the divide that currently separates our community. 

I understand the anger and disappointment that backers of the Salem River Crossing felt after the 6-3 City Council vote to terminate the project. It hurts to see a cause that you deeply believe in go down in flames. But life goes on. Negativity needs to turn to positivity.

The February 18 meeting is a great place to start.

I'll end by noting that I found the Facebook post by Jim Allhiser, chair of the West Salem Neighborhood Association, to be highly questionable.

I've been to NA meetings where both sides of a political issue have made presentations, but what Salem Bridge Solutions is doing is so blatantly one-sided, I'm wondering if it fits under the purpose of neighborhood associations -- since they are supposed to represent everybody who lives in a certain part of Salem, not just those with a particular viewpoint.

It took a village to stop the Third Bridge

After I watched the Salem City Council kill the Salem River Crossing or Third Bridge project last night, my first reaction was to feel deeply thankful toward the six councilors who did the right thing by saving Salem from this Billion Dollar Boondoggle.

But with a bit more reflection, my thankfulness expanded to include many hundreds, in fact many thousands, of people who stopped the Third Bridge. 

Most broadly -- and in some ways most importantly -- everybody who worked so hard to elect the six progressive councilors on the nine-member City Council. The Third Bridge would have continued on with no serious roadblocks if the Council had remained dominated by conservatives and a lonely progressive, Tom Andersen.

Thus arguably the unsung heroes in this saga of people-power triumphing over money-power are the people who donated money, knocked on doors, and otherwise helped with the campaigns of Tom Andersen, Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, Matt Ausec, Chris Hoy, and Jackie Leung. Progressive Salem greatly aided these campaigns, with the notable exception of Leung's.

Salem owes all of you a big debt of gratitude, along with the voters who cast their ballots for these six progressives. This debt can't be quantified, even though a billion dollars is a defensible nice round number.

Next, a big shout-out to those who appealed the City of Salem's go-ahead for an expansion of the Urban Growth Boundary to accommodate a Salem River Crossing bridgehead. When the Land Use Board of Appeals ruled in favor of the appellants on several "assignments of error," it was clear that the project was doomed.

Why?

Because the legal remand back to the City Council to address the errors meant that the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Third Bridge would be on hold until the Council acted to fix the problems. Last night, the Council voted not to do this, which killed the project (since a deadline for completing the DEIS was coming up).

So massive thanks go to those who petitioned LUBA: Sarah Deumling, Linda Wallmark, Gary Wallmark, Linda Bierly, Ken Bierly, James (Jim) Scheppke, Robert Cortright, and Doug Parrow. E.M. Easterly joined in as an Intervenor-Petitioner. John Gear served as their able attorney.

I'll add that last night Councilor Jim Lewis, an avid Third Bridge supporter, posed a ridiculous question to Cortright after Cortright testified against moving the project forward. Lewis asked why the LUBA petitioners didn't appeal the decision, since they prevailed on only a few rather minor points.

Well, duh, if Lewis had read the press release issued by the No 3rd Bridge folks after the LUBA ruling, he would have seen:

The eight citizen petitioners who brought the appeal are very pleased with the remand. They urge that Salem pursue a number of less-costly actions to address traffic congestion problems rather than try to repeat the UGB expansion process to accommodate the new bridge on the new route.

In other words, once Third Bridge supporters were a minority on the City Council, there was no way the UGB expansion was going to happen.

No UGB expansion meant no final Environmental Impact Statement. No EIS meant no Third Bridge. Thus Cortright simply told Lewis that he was pleased the Council was revisiting the legal issues, since he was confident the six progressive councilors wouldn't want to address the assignments of error.

I just said No 3rd Bridge folks, as in plural, but in large part the group's Facebook page and organizing efforts were led by one guy, Jim Scheppke. Yes, he had help.

Scott Bassett initiated the fight against the Third Bridge and deserves a lot of credit for his solid research on the drawbacks of this project. Scheppke then was instrumental in keeping the drawbacks of the Third Bridge in the public eye through frequent Facebook posts over a number of years and other means. 

As did the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger (summary here), and yes, me (Third Bridge posts here). Ken Adams conducted a great CCTV interview of Bob Cortright, and likely informed people about the Third Bridge in other ways.

The citizen members of the initial Salem River Crossing Task Force helped out by voting for a "no build" option, as this showed that while bureaucrats and special interest groups favored the Third Bridge, the general public and Salem neighborhood associations were opposed.

Surely there are other people who were instrumental in stopping the Third Bridge who I haven't mentioned. Accept my thanks in abstentia. 

Lastly, I want to thank those who helped kill the Third Bridge by their clumsy support of it.

This includes several Salem mayors, most recently Chuck Bennett. Heavy-handed politicking with rampant fact-free spin-doctoring by public officials and the Chamber of Commerce helped sway people against the project, as did a failure to reach out to opponents and seek common ground.

The green-shirted Salem Bridge Solutions group didn't advance its cause by spreading similar blatant falsehoods, along with a notorious display of bad behavior at a West Salem Neighborhood Association meeting. With friends like that, it's no wonder the Third Bridge has died a well-deserved death.

Killing the Third Bridge was a wise move

Anyone who doubts that the City Council did the right thing by killing the Third Bridge on a 6-3 vote last night should spend 10 minutes and watch Councilor Tom Andersen's eloquent explanation of why the Salem River Crossing project deserved to die. This video starts (hopefully) at the beginning of Andersen's remarks.

He points out that the official bridge reports show that a Third Bridge wouldn't reduce congestion, would be environmentally unsound, would displace many homes and businesses, likely wouldn't stand up in a major earthquake, would require tolling on both the current bridges and new bridge, and would suck about half a billion dollars out of taxpayer pockets.

So who has been pushing for the Third Bridge? Andersen poses this question yet leaves it unanswered. Well, the answer is... mostly special interests. Realtors. Builders. Pave-it-over advocates. Chamber of Commerce boosters. Sure, many people testified in favor of building the bridge last night.

But we need to remember that six of the nine members of the City Council were elected after making campaign promises to oppose a Third Bridge. So most people in Salem agree with killing this wasteful, ineffective, unneeded project.

Last night was a victory of the general public interest over special interests. Many thanks to Councilors Tom Andersen, Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, Chris Hoy, Jackie Leung, and Matt Ausec for doing the right thing.

The dirt on the missing Third Bridge dirt

If City Councilors want more reasons to vote NO at their meeting tonight on whether to keep the Salem River Crossing (Third Bridge) project alive, here's disturbing information on missing dirt from the area where the west bridgehead would be located.

This morning I received this "dirt on the missing dirt" from a trusted source, who said:

-----------------------------------------------

Here is documentation that the Salem River Crossing project management team is misleading the Salem City Council by withholding and misrepresenting information about the costs of the bridge and seismic safety.  

 

What is the foundation of all bridge planning?  The ground upon which to build a bridge.  Well, what happens when the ground is literally pulled out from under the bridge and the bridge planning managers fail to acknowledge it is missing? 

 

The public ends up with an unrealistic bridge plan and cost estimates because public officials have withheld information from elected officials for years in an apparent effort to keep the estimated bridge cost estimates unrealistically low because they do not acknowledging the ground is missing. 

 

(This concern about managers withholding information also applies to greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on downtown businesses, which I could provide to you also.)

 

The Walling family owns the west "bridgehead" of the Salem Alternative and they opposed routing the bridge across their property. Walling called publicly for the proposed bridge to be moved off of his land and when it was not, he removed the land and left an enormous hole where the west end of the bridge was to rest.

 

The full comment that was submitted by Walling for the DEIS [Draft Environmental Impact Statement] states:  

"Your recent Statesman Journal article regarding the addition of a new bridge crossing the Willamette River into West Salem is causing great concern. This is a concern that needs to be brought to your attention immediately.

Although we understand the need for an additional route into West Salem, we fail to see how one of your proposed routes—which would severely disrupt an 80 year old locally owned business—would be considered, as it would directly impact an already highly congested area.

In addition, this latest proposal would route the bridge traffic through our mining operation, which would directly impact a significant number of construction companies who use our material for road and highway paving, parking lots, curb and gutter, and, ironically, bridge construction.

In the immediate Salem area there are a very few gravel mining operations with enough capacity to provide the necessary materials for major construction projects. Should your plan be accepted, builders and construction companies would be forced to source material outside the Salem area, which would impact local businesses and their employees.

We encourage you to take great care in your decision making process rather than eliminate acres of opportunity for the local economy."

Since work on the bridge planning did not stop, the Wallings appear to have decided to take matters into their own hands and literally pull the ground out from under the west side of the bridge.

 

Excavators and trucks the sizes of large buildings worked five or six days a week for most of two years to remove the dirt from the proposed pathway across the Wallings property and sell it or stack it up on their property out of the way.

 

Removing all this ground leaves the west end of the bridge up in the air and greatly increases the costs to build taller and strong bridge supports.  On the east end of the bridge there is a high bank with Front Street on top.  On the West side there is a 30 foot deep hole which will eventually fill with water and be the Walling Phase III Lake.

 

 

As noted above, this dirt did not suddenly vanish, instead it was removed one dump truck-sized excavator scoop at a time over about the last eight years. The bridge planning managers know it is gone but will not factor in the costs of replacing the missing ground into the cost estimates. 

 

The bridge planning manager also will not acknowledge the extra costs to build on the unstable slopes of the steep cuts that were created by the excavation.  (Documentation of the increased costs of building on the steep cuts will be provided to you in a separate email and also show that the bridge planning managers acknowledge the missing ground in some technical reports but not others.)

 

 

This link includes an image from a presentation Mike Jaffe made to the SRC Oversight Team in September of 2014.  It shows the excavation of the ground under the west bridgehead is well underway. 

Yet, the "draft" SRC Construction Impacts "Final" Memo posted by the City of Salem dated June 2016 shows what the "Existing Elevation" was when the excavation had just barely begun. This documents that the cost estimates do not account for the missing ground.

 

 

Also, all property owners along the proposed route were to be given notice of on-site field surveys to be conducted after the Salem Alternative was approved by the SRC Oversight Team in 2013 or 2014. This second round of on-site visits was to be used to update information from the DEIS and prepare the Final EIS. However, the information for the Construction Impact and Geology technical reports relies on surveys from 2009.

 

SRC Geology Final Tech Report Addendum published September 2016 reports on page 2.2 that the most recent site visit was clear back in 2009:

 

"Based on observations from the site visit in 2009, in the vicinity of the gravel mining operations..."

 

Is it reasonable that the Salem River Crossing management team did not use readily available remote sensing images that give topographical information to update reports issued in 2016?  Should the management team have authorized revisiting the gravel mining operations again since there were active mining operations and the report states on page 4-2:

"4.2.1 New Bridge/Gravel Pit Area

Proposed layouts indicate that five to six of the bridge piers, or “bents” would be constructed in the gravel pit, or near the steep side slopes of the pit. The pit has filled with water, which could also make construction more difficult and require cofferdams and dewatering. Figure 4.2-2 shows where the bridge piers would be constructed near the old gravel pit (see Figure 4.2-1 for the location in the APE).

 

Portions of the bridge structure would overlie an area of continued gravel mining. This could result in poor foundation conditions, or lateral loading from unstable side slopes that could impact the structures (Figure 4.2-3; see Figure 4.2-1 for the location in the APE).

 

The project would be required to acquire sufficient adjoining ground so that stable slopes could be maintained during future gravel-mining operations. The property acquisition might also include placing deed restrictions on the adjacent mining operations to limit the slope angles and depth of excavation next to the acquired right-of-way."

 

There is reason to be concerned about the reasons why the SRC management team might have excluded the area of the gravel mining operations from the second round of on-site surveys.  This might have been done because they did not want to base the bridge cost estimates on the amount of ground that had actually been removed and the expanded areas of the steep slopes left after additional years of excavation.

"Post-mortem" inquiry called for after Third Bridge dies

Obviously we can't be certain that the Salem River Crossing (or Third Bridge) project will die a well-deserved death tomorrow at the February 11 City Council meeting. 

But since the six progressives on the nine-member Council all were elected after promising to fight what I like to call the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, smart money would bet on this draft letter being sent by the Mayor to the Federal Highway Administration and Oregon Department of Transportation on Tuesday.
Download No Further Action PDF

(City of Salem staff have another draft letter ready to go if, against all odds, the City Council were to give a go-ahead to the Salem River Crossing project.)

John Gear, a Salem attorney, has a great idea if the Third Bridge does indeed die tomorrow. He wants to have a "lesson learned" inquiry occur that studies how the project ended up being managed so poorly, wasting over $8 million of taxpayer money on a futile effort.

Here's the letter that Gear has sent to Mayor Bennett and the City Council. EIS stands for Environmental Impact Statement. Gear does a great job summarizing the problems that faced this project from the start. Perhaps heads don't need to roll at City Hall, but maybe they do.

We won't know unless the Salem River Crossing post-mortem happens. And as Gear notes, obviously this should be done by an independent panel, not the same City officials who played such a big role in screwing things up.

9 February 2019

 

Honorable Chuck Bennett, Mayor of Salem
and the Salem City Council

 

RE: The Need to End the Salem River Crossing EIS with “No Build” Decision and an Official Lessons-Learned Inquiry Into the Project

 

     Time is short before your Monday meeting, so I won’t repeat the many objective reasons you should end the Salem River Crossing EIS with a “no build” decision. Suffice it to say that its most adamant bridge boosters doomed the SRC at the very start by their absolute refusal to deal fairly and honestly with alternatives for dealing with cross-river traffic. That key failure destroyed all public confidence in the SRC oversight team and its technical management staff and, therefore, all sense that the EIS process had any integrity.

 

     The inherent flaws in the SRC project and oversight team approach are so common in government projects and were so glaring that they jumped out at me in 2007 when I arrived in Salem as a complete newcomer, having no preset ideas about a bridge. But I moved here from Lansing, Michigan, another capital city of similar size, which suffers terribly from highway projects that were sold as “revitalization” and “progress” but that only served to hasten and deepen the city’s decline.

 

     So, while new to Salem, I  knew that projects sold as “vital” for “progress” may just be ways to burden city residents to benefit wealthier suburban and rural neighbors and development interests. In Salem, there were enough red flags to make me investigate more closely, and I soon saw virtually every hallmark of a classic highway boondoggle.

 

     The money spent on this project is a sunk cost, and the pain stops as soon as the spending does. But there is ongoing pain that has not stopped, pain caused by the deep corrosion of trust in the network of city, county, state, and local government officials and staff who have managed the SRC EIS process. Thus, even after ending this EIS by adopting a “no build” recommendation, there is more you need to do to address the forces that made this process go so expensively haywire.

 

     To address that collapse in trust, I urge the Salem City Council to commission a “lessons learned” inquiry into the SRC EIS by convening and funding a serious independent panel with expertise in public policy, project management, and public involvement to study the project from start to finish. The goal would be ensure that the complete record of this project is preserved and that everyone connected with it is interviewed, so that a penetrating, unvarnished history and analysis can be published in two to three years.

 

     We need such an inquiry because we very much need to understand the root causes that made the SRC process go so badly astray. Right now, Salem is updating its comprehensive plan and wrestling with structural deficits caused by past unproductive development decisions, so we should understand the weaknesses in how we make such crucial decisions.

 

     If we can identify what caused the Salem River Crossing project to go so badly and expensively off-course, we may be able to avoid repeating those mistakes in the future and to help all Oregon.

 

     We are coming into an era of unprecedented challenges and painful consequences felt from decisions made long ago. So we have neither the time nor the money to repeat the mistakes that plagued the SRC in the future. We face serious, rising environmental threats, systemic and growing fiscal shortfalls, and ever-wider and deeper inequality and poverty in our city. Thus we cannot be satisfied just to pull the plug on the SRC. We must also seek to understand what kept the SRC on the front burner of city politics for over a decade, consuming resources and attention needed to address many more serious problems in our community.

 

     After your meeting Monday, I expect I will be able to give two loud cheers for your decision to select the “no build” option as the outcome of the SRC EIS. For the full three cheers, and for the benefit of all Salem, please also commission a post-mortem study of the SRC EIS project, so that we may salvage some learning from the SRC process and do better in the future.

 

Cordially,

s/ John Gear.

Seeing Salem's homeless sleeping outside stirred up these feelings

Yesterday I walked around downtown Salem before and after my 6 pm Tai Chi class.

On Court Street I saw several people lying on sidewalk benches, completely covered in gray blankets that I assume had been given out in anticipation of the next round of cold, snowy weather.

On Commercial Street I saw others in sleeping bags lying on the sidewalk in the doorways of businesses that had closed for the day.

My core feeling was, How can it be that the United States is so uncaring about citizens living on the street? 

It just seems so wrong, so very wrong, that while our country has made a commitment to educate every child at public expense through high school, has gone a long way toward guaranteeing access to health care for everybody (though Trump is doing his best to undermine the Affordable Care Act), and puts considerable money into making sure few people go hungry, there is no comparable societal consensus on making sure everyone has a home.

Education, health care, having food to eat -- most would say that these are fundamental human rights. Shouldn't having a place to live also be a fundamental right?

It seems crazy that along with every other city in the United States, Salem has to struggle to find a solution to homelessness mostly on its own. Sure, there are federal housing programs for low-income people.  But if these were a cure-all, I wouldn't have seen people sleeping on the sidewalks of downtown Salem.

I have friends who are wonderfully committed to helping the homeless. They volunteer at warming shelters when the weather turns cold. They do what they can to feed the homeless and are part of efforts to provide more affordable housing.

All that is praiseworthy. I deeply admire the many people in Salem who are dedicated to making the lives of the homeless better.

However, as positive as these efforts are, I keep thinking that individual acts of charity are as limited in solving our country's homelessness problem as they would be if children lacking a school had to rely on the "kindness of strangers" to get an education.

In his recent State of the Union speech, President Trump spoke about how he doesn't want the United States to become a socialist nation. To which I respond, OK, but we can emulate success stories of countries like Finland when it comes to combatting homelessness.

Here's some excerpts from a February 2018 World Economic Forum article, "How Finland solved its homelessness problem." Basically, it is the same approach used successfully in Utah: give people a home! (duh...)

In the last year in the UK, the number of people sleeping rough rose by 7%. In Germany, the last two years saw a 35% increase in the number of homeless while in France, there has been an increase of 50% in the last 11 years.

These are Europe’s three biggest economies, and yet they haven’t solved their housing problem. Across Europe, the picture is much the same.

Except in Finland.

There, the number of homeless is steadily decreasing. So what have they been doing differently?

The Finns have turned the traditional approach to homelessness on its head.

There can be a number of reasons as to why someone ends up homeless, including sudden job loss or family breakdown, severe substance abuse or mental health problems. But most homelessness policies work on the premise that the homeless person has to sort those problems out first before they can get permanent accommodation.

Finland does the opposite - it gives them a home first.

...Housing First works so well because it is a mainstream national homelessness policy with a common framework, according to Juha Kaakinen, Chief executive of Y-Foundation, a social enterprise that provides housing to Housing First. It involves a wide partnership of people: the state, volunteers, municipalities and NGOs.

“All this costs money,” admits Kaakinen. “But there is ample evidence from many countries that shows it is always more cost-effective to aim to end homelessness instead of simply trying to manage it. Investment in ending homelessness always pays back, to say nothing of the human and ethical reasons.”

Salem is trying to manage homelessness because seemingly this is the only option available to City officials. The City of Salem budget already is facing multi-million dollar deficits. It's very unlikely that local revenues would be enough to implement a Housing First approach here that would end homelessness.

A statewide Housing First program in Oregon might be feasible. But not in the foreseeable future, given other legislative priorities. So it seems that the best bet is for Democrats to take back the White House and both houses of Congress in the 2020 election.

The United Staes is rich enough to provide a safety net for everybody in this country. What is lacking isn't money, but the will to do this. My hope is that the current Trump era is just a four-year detour on the road that leads to genuine compassion for the less fortunate among us. 

Like the people I saw sleeping on benches and sidewalks last night.

Pelosi's smirk made watching State of the Union worthwhile

I've never skipped a State of the Union address, but this year it crossed my mind. Well, just a few seconds of Trump's overly long and mostly boring speech made me glad that I watched it live.

Nancy Pelosi's closed-eyes smirk of condescension, which was preceded by some eloquent eye-rolling, was a memorable moment. It followed Trump's ridiculous claim that the only thing standing between us and prosperity is... investigations into wrongdoing by Trump and his cohorts.

“An economic miracle is taking place in the United States — and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations,” he said. “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn’t work that way!”

Hmmm. Interesting bit of illogic.

My literary sensibility says that, in the second sentence above, peace and legislation should be contrasted with -- no big surprise -- contrasting words. War does indeed contrast with peace, but how does investigation contrast with legislation? 

Only in Trump's enfeebled brain, apparently. It could well be that he wrote this line and liked how both words ended in tion. And maybe he really does believe that if Democrats investigate him, there's no way he would sign any bipartisan legislation.

But the first part of his speech was all about coming together, bridging political divides, patching over differences for the good of the country. All that feel-goodness was erased by his petulant demand that unless investigations stop, legislation is a no-go. 

Which made much of the rest of his speech politically irrelevant.

Democrats aren't going to stop investigating all things Trumpian. Neither is Mueller. Nor are other federal investigators in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere. 

So if Trump wants an infrastructure bill, lower drug prices, money to end HIV, family leave benefits, and stronger border security, he's going to have to suck it up and accept that investigation isn't an antonym of legislation. 

Aside from the Pelosi smirk, here's some other things that I enjoyed in tonight's State of the Union address:

-- Seeing the contrast between dark-suited Republican men, mostly, standing and applauding Trump's applause lines while on the other side of the aisle white-clad Democratic women, mostly, sat in their chairs.

-- Watching Democrats look quizzically at each other when Trump spoke words that sounded sort of like something that deserved standing up and clapping for, but nobody wanted to be the first to do this. At first I thought that Dems would follow Pelosi's lead on the standing up front. However, in line with the progressive "herding cats" dictum, fairly early on the Democratic legislators tended to do their own thing.

-- Observing the women in white, who were honoring women's suffrage/fight for rights, stand and applaud each other raucously when Trump noted that more women were in Congress than ever before. What he failed to say, of course, was that many of those women are newly elected Democrats who surfed to victory on a 2018 Blue Wave of opposition to Trump.

Of course, I also spent quite a bit of time screaming "liar" at the TV. Per usual, Trump said a lot of things that weren't true. The Washington Post fact-checkers did a great job cataloging his falsehoods, along with some occasional truth-telling.

The frequent references to World War II, D-Day, Nazis, and concentration camps seemed off-base to me. Sure, these are important subjects. However, they have little or nothing to do with the current State of the Union. Seemingly the veterans and war heroes were dragged out for applause-line purposes, which struck me as wrong. 

As did using the child with brain cancer to buttress Trump's call for $500 million (I think it was) to support medical research in the area of childhood cancer. This from a  president who has been horribly anti-science and wants to do away with the Affordable Care Act without proposing any viable health insurance alternative.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Donald Trump.