Salem Political Snark

Marion County garbage burner propaganda disputed by Clean Air Now Coalition

Most of us don't pay much attention to where our garbage goes after it is picked up.

But if you live in Marion County (Oregon), you should. Because the end point of our trash gets burned up by an incinerator owned and operated by Covanta, a multi-billion dollar company that's trying to get the Oregon legislature to give it renewable energy tax credits.

Yes, for burning garbage. Who knew that garbage was a renewable resource? (It isn't -- that's why hardly anybody but Covanta favors bestowing taxpayer money on the incinerator in Brooks, north of Salem.)

On February 21, a week ago today, the Salem City Club made a big mistake. Instead of allowing both proponents and opponents of the garbage burner to have their say, the City Club decided to only let Marion County representatives speak -- both of whom spouted Covanta propaganda shamelessly since the county contracts with Covanta.

I wrote about this travesty in "Marion County officials are clueless about profit margin of garbage incinerator." This was only one of many WTF? moments at the City Club program.

Fortunately, the Clean Air Now Coalition put together a well-written, factual, nicely documented rebuttal of the Covanta/Marion County propaganda that I painfully had to listen to for over an hour, being a Salem City Club member who usually enjoys the programs, this one being a notable exception.

Below is what the Clear Air Now Coalition said.

I've added some paragraph breaks to make the rebuttal easier to read, and inserted links to several PDF files included with the coalition's report. It's must-reading for anyone who cares about reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Marion County, and protecting people from the harmful chemicals emitted by the garbage burner.

There are members of the Clean Air Now Coalition who want to take exception to much of the presentation made by Marion County staff to the Salem City Club on February 21, 2020. The presenters may simply be otherwise well-meaning targets of Covanta propaganda, but that resulted in elements of distraction and misdirection that seemed similar to what one might observe in a magic act.

In one example of misdirection (“Hey, look over there!”) the audience was basically given two waste management paths from which to choose: 

1) the waste incinerator, which was presented as having a few tolerable flaws, versus 

2) landfills that produce methane, take up farmland, and potentially pollute ground water.

The sustainable option of waste prevention and waste reduction was presented as a supplement to incineration and landfilling rather than a completely separate option from either the incinerator or methane-producing landfills. 

This sustainable option should be seen as a separate option all on its own and be pursued diligently until Marion County over a period of years reaches at least a 90% diversion of its waste stream through waste prevention, reuse, repair, recycling, and composting. What remains can be landfilled (in less space than that currently used each year by incinerator ash) with the methane-producing organic matter diverted to composting. 

Also, the incineration of waste at the Covanta Marion incinerator is the antithesis of waste reduction because Marion County's contract with Covanta requires that the County provide enough waste to fully fuel the incinerator. 

If that obligation is not met, the County is penalized. Thus, at such time that a waste reduction program became successful enough to reduce the waste stream below that required incinerator fuel level, the County would begin being penalized for further waste reduction.

We want to point out that toxic emissions from the incinerator are NOT monitored continuously, as Mr. Nicholas incorrectly said initially. 

Toxic heavy metals, extremely toxic dioxins, and hydrogen chloride are only measured annually with samples taken during three pre-announced runs during a testing period of a few days by a contractor of Covanta’s choosing. Numerous other toxins known to be emitted by solid waste incinerators are not measured at all.

During the question and answer period of the City Club program the presenters partially corrected themselves but implied that the few gases that are monitored continuously (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide) serve as “indicators“ for all of the other things that are not monitored continuously. We strongly take issue with that contention.

If somehow a large batch of lead or cadmium entered the waste stream, for example, they would certainly increase the emissions of those toxins; but the magnitude of that increase would not be detectable by monitoring the few gases that are part of the continuous emissions monitoring system. Only by continuous monitoring of the toxins themselves  (as is done in many European incinerators) would a reasonably accurate measure be taken.

In addition to the problem of infrequent testing for toxins, there is also a flaw in the timing of testing for toxins such as dioxin.  The incinerator’s air quality permit specifies that measurements may only be taken during optimal operating conditions. It has been demonstrated in a European study that the production of dioxins can increase 30 to 50 times during malfunctions, startup, and shutdown as compared to their production during optimal operating conditions.

The presenters pointed out how the Covanta Marion incinerator overwhelmingly meets the emissions limits set by the current air quality permit. However, the following things that they did not point out are very important: This incinerator burns over 11,000 tons of medical waste per year (with about 10,000 tons of that coming from out of state). That is over five times the amount of medical waste that a large medical waste incinerator would have to burn in order to qualify for a much stricter set of emissions limits. 

The Covanta Marion incinerator’s emissions of acid gases and heavy metals exceeded these stricter emission limits consistently and extensively during the past seven years for which we have data. In spite of the fact that they conceivably burn more medical waste then some actual large medical waste incinerators, they are held to much more lax emission standards than large medical waste incinerators just because they are called a “municipal solid waste incinerator."

This inconsistency created by EPA (with possible corporate and political influence in our opinion) does not make logical sense at all. The toxins the Covanta Marion incinerator emits are no less harmful than if they had been emitted from an incinerator officially called a “large medical waste incinerator." A table showing these emission comparisons, with figures provided by the Oregon DEQ, is attached.

Download GA - Covanta current limits and actual emissions with explanations 2-13-20

Another example of distraction during the presentation was the statement that the greenhouse gas emitted by the incinerator represents only a small fraction of the greenhouse gas from other sources, such as transportation and production of electricity.

We would compare that to the “murderer versus mass murderer“ defense argument.  In this scenario the murderer says, “You should set me free because I only murdered one person in cold blood, whereas that person over there murdered 50 people.”  It is estimated that this incinerator produces greenhouse gas each year equivalent to the annual production of greenhouse gas by about 34,000 automobiles.

It is also ironic that the presenters would include the production of electricity in their comparison of the relative amounts of greenhouse gases coming from various sources. It is estimated that electricity created by waste incineration produces approximately 2.5 times as much greenhouse gas per unit of electricity as a coal fired power plant.  See this link:  http://www.energyjustice.net/incineration/climate

The presenters showed a graph that they stated multiple times was produced by the incinerator industry and not by them. It purported to show that waste incineration is a net reducer of greenhouse gases because it helps “avoid“ other sources of greenhouse gas, such as fossil fuel electricity generation and smelting of metal ores. 

That claim regarding the 19th greatest industrial producer of greenhouse gas in Oregon per a report from the Oregon DEQ is not only ludicrous on the face of it (which is probably why the presenters took pains to ensure we understood it was not their graph); it does not stand up to critical analysis. Please see the same link as presented in the preceding paragraph to read more about that analysis.

The presenters also presented graphics that seemed to show that the incinerator is not known to cause harm to environmental justice populations (minorities, disadvantaged, etc.). Yet in our own analysis for the area which incinerator emissions could be expected to reach, we found that “according to the US EPA, the neighborhoods within a 7-mile radius around the Covanta waste incineration facility are in the 88th percentile for cancer and respiratory risks (using National Air Toxics Assessment data). 

Furthermore the US EPA lists the area’s demographics indicators for minority (86th percentile), low-income (70th percentile) and linguistically isolated populations (88th percentile) for an overall Demographic Index in the 83rd percentile compared to other areas in Oregon. The bottom line is that environmental justice populations are at risk from the incinerator's emissions.

We have also attached to this message a waste reduction sample plan for Marion County and a copy of the "Healthy and Sustainable Waste Management" handout that was available on the registration table at the February 21 City Club program.

Download Waste reduction plan - sample 11-17-18
Download Healthy and Sustainable Waste Management (revised) 2-16-20

There are no doubt other points to be made about the February 21 presentation, but we will stop here and allow you to reach your own conclusions. 

Clean Air Now Coalition
http://cleanair-now.org/  

Covanta Marion garbage incinerator

Revised sit-lie ordinance is a laudable compromise, but still flawed

Last night the Salem City Council voted 7-1 to move ahead with considering Cara Kaser's creative attempt to find a middle ground on how to deal with downtown's homeless problem. (Jim Lewis was the only no vote; Tom Andersen was out of town).

A Salem Reporter story, "Salem City Council moves ahead with sit-lie -- with some conditions," explains the essence of Kaser's approach.

The Salem City Council is moving forward with a plan to ban sitting and lying on public sidewalks — with provisions.

Councilor Cara Kaser made a motion to go ahead with the ban on Monday, Feb. 24, with a stipulation that it wouldn’t go into effect until an indoor or outdoor day facility provides shelter from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., the hours that would be regulated under the proposed ordinance.

It would also keep the ordinance from kicking people out of the downtown exclusion zone for violating the ban and requires the city to come up with a plan to provide permanent restrooms. 

This seems to be a reasonable compromise between the extremes of two groups of people who provided verbal public testimony at the February 24 council meeting.

I watched some of the testimony via CCTV's streaming of the meeting.

Quite a few downtown businesspeople were adamant that allowing the homeless to essentially live on sidewalks in the area is causing their businesses a lot of harm. Some of their employees are afraid to use the parking garages because of bad behavior by homeless individuals. And they're worried that customers are avoiding downtown.

On the other hand, many other people spoke about the need to not criminalize the homeless. They correctly pointed out that many of those living on the streets have no choice, either because of an inability to afford a place to live, or for other reasons -- such as mental health problems.

I believe Councilor Kaser said that her proposal isn't going to be liked by most of those who testified. Likely that's true, which indicates that it is an appealing middle ground. However, it still has problems. 

A Statesman Journal story, "Modified sit-lie proposal gains favor with Salem councilors, with restrictions," describes what could be the central drawback of the proposal: a lack of places for the homeless to go during the daytime when the sit-lie ordinance would prevent lying and sitting on sidewalks (with some exceptions).

Jimmy Jones, the executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, said while considerable resources are in the works, like more housing and a navigation center, the conditions suggested for the sit-lie are unlikely to be met and unlikely to be successful if achieved. 

"Even our expanded day center will not come close to meeting the need for the total unsheltered homeless population in Salem," Jones said. "There will need to be additional spaces designated. ARCHES will not be enough alone, and requiring that most of the downtown homeless be there will quickly overwhelm our capacity if there’s no place elsewhere to go."

Jones said about 1,000 people live outside in the Salem/Keizer area. Of those, 300 live in the immediate downtown area. 

He said the conditions will also be pricey. Expanding the ARCHES day center to include weekends and evenings will cost almost $1 million over their current operating budget. Even a minimal expansion, like extending to hours from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. during the week, would cost $400,000 a year. 

About 125 people visit ARCHES a day. The expansion would allow them to fit more people —"maybe 95 or so" — inside at one time. Expanded operating hours would lead to more traffic, Jones said. 

"We can handle the bulk of the folks, but having an overflow somewhere is going to be necessary," he said. 

Jones warned of creating even more "unintended consequences" like the ones seen after evictions of people living under bridges and in local parks, and a ban on camping on city property. 

When the ban was enacted, it pushed people away from established clusters of tents and tarps, like the one outside the ARCHES Project, and into new locations, like the stretch of sheltered space running along Rite Aid, T.J. Maxx and the former Nordstrom building.  

So there's numerous moving parts that need to fit together smoothly in order for a modified sit-lie ordinance to succeed. Here's some of the things that come to mind in addition to the possible lack of day centers for the homeless, as noted above by Jimmy Jones.

-- Providing a place for homeless people to store their belongings during the day.

-- Enforcing the sit-lie ordinance from 7 am to 9 pm, given that Kaser's proposal takes away the ability of police to exclude people from the downtown area if they have repeated infractions of the ordinance. 

-- Dealing with the reluctance of some homeless people to spend their day in an organized day center. This could be due to a mental health problem, or a simple preference for being on their own.

-- Ensuring that downtown businesses have the patience to continue dealing with problems caused by homeless people during what could be a lengthy period of city officials and homeless advocates figuring out how to make the revised sit-lie ordinance work.

Salem's proposed sit-lie ordinance rests on a bunch of "can'ts"

Tomorrow there's a good chance the Salem City Council will approve a citywide sit-lie ordinance that prohibits sitting and lying on public sidewalks between the hours of 7 am to 9 pm, subject to certain exceptions. 

Aimed at homeless people, obviously, this is the most recent attempt to pass a sit-lie ordinance, which so far has failed to get a majority vote from the City Council.

Mayor Chuck Bennett

Mayor Bennett really wants to have it passed this time, as a recent Salem Reporter story made clear. Here's an excerpt from "Salem Mayor pushes for 'sit-lie' in the face of increasing uproar over homeless problem downtown."

Each day Mayor Chuck Bennett opens his electronic inbox to a half dozen emails from downtown shoppers and business owners upset about the homeless people residing on sidewalks.

Feeling compelled to act, Bennett is pushing for a ban on sitting or lying on sidewalks during the day to deal with the 50 or so people camping in front of Rite Aid on Northeast Liberty Street.

He said the campers have no incentive to move on, and a new city law, recommended by both Salem Police Chief Jerry Moore and City Manager Steve Powers, would provide that.

“There are places that people can go during the day,” Bennett said, citing city parks, the library and day rooms at The ARCHES Project and Union Gospel Mission.

I believe Councilor Tom Andersen is out of the country, so Bennett needs five of the eight other members of the City Council to vote "aye" on the sit-lie ordinance. A plausible scenario is that Bennett, Jim Lewis, Brad Nanke, Cara Kaser, and Chris Hoy provide those votes.

It's a difficult decision. I looked through the public comments received so far on this agenda item. Opinions seemed split fairly evenly between those who favor the sit-lie ordinance and those who oppose it.

The way I see it, the proposed ordinance is the result of a bunch of "can'ts" -- all of which have merit, but many of them are contradictory.

Homeless people can't be allowed to drive visitors away from downtown Salem businesses.
Homeless people can't be treated like second-class citizens. 
Homeless people can't be allowed to camp on public property. 
Homeless people can't be the scapegoats of societal income inequality.
Homeless people can't litter downtown with their belongings, trash, and excrement.
Homeless people can't be shunted from place to place at the whim of city officials.
Homeless people can't be refused a safe place to sleep.

Probably there are more can'ts that i haven't thought of, and I readily admit that these brief one-liners don't capture the breadth and complexity of Salem's homeless problem. 

I share them simply because I've got a lot of sympathy for everybody involved: the homeless; social service agencies; police; downtown businesses; visitors to downtown; city staff; the City Council; those who live and work downtown. 

Seemingly there is no way to please everybody. If the City Council passes the sit-lie ordinance tomorrow, lots of people will be upset. If the City Council rejects the sit-lie ordinance, lots of other people will be upset. 

I don't know what the City Council should do. If it decides to approve the sit-lie ordinance, seemingly the current ban on homeless camps should be lifted to some extent -- such as by allowing camping in Marion Square Park, as was suggested by several people who submitted testimony on the proposed ordinance.

Obviously the homeless need some place to go between 7 am and 9 pm. If the City of Salem doesn't offer that place, the sit-lie ordinance is going to lead to more unintended consequences, and nobody wants that to happen.

Marion County officials are clueless about profit margin of garbage incinerator

Today's Salem City Club program on the controversial Covanta garbage incinerator that handles Marion County trash was as disappointing as I and others expected it to be.

Back in January I criticized the City Club for making the program totally biased in a blog post called "Salem City Club sparks outrage with one-sided garbage burner program." 

Last week I was included in email exchanges between environmentalists from the local chapter of 350.org and City Club members in charge of the garbage burner program. My sympathies then, as now, are with the environmentalists.

For after failing to have the Oregon legislature approve a bill in 2019 that would grant Renewable Energy Credits to Covanta, there's another effort underway in the upcoming 2020 short legislative session to pass a similar bill.

...So Marion County, which handles the Covanta contract and is overseen by an all-Republican Board of Commissioners who, so far as I know, are all global warming deniers (Sam Brentano definitely is), gets to use the February 21 City Club program to present a one-sided view of how wonderful the Covanta garbage burner is, and why renewable energy credits should be bestowed on the Covanta corporation.

This makes no sense to me, especially since February 21 is right in the middle of the February 3 - March 7 legislative session.

By not allowing an environmentalist like Andy Harris to be able to refute the claims of the Marion County representatives who will have the podium all to themselves, the Salem City Club has chosen to align itself with one-side of the Covanta garbage burner debate -- which happens to be the side that has the least scientific credibility, in my view.

Indeed, today's program turned out even worse than I thought it would be. I'd hoped that Cindy Condon, the City Club member who planned the program, would allow plenty of time for questions during the hour (12 pm to 1 pm) presentations normally last.

But two Marion County employees used up the entire hour, and then some, with what essentially was a infomercial for the Covanta garbage burner. Covanta, a giant corporation, is trying to get the Oregon legislature to bestow renewable energy tax credits on the burner, even though it seems clear that garbage isn't a renewable resource.

A few minutes after 1 pm, when people were starting to leave, a question and answer period started. I got to ask what I thought was an excellent probing question, given that Covanta has said that it may have to shut down the garbage burner if it doesn't get the tax credits.

Here's what I asked the Marion County officials:

A recent Statesman Journal story says that Covanta didn't respond to a state legislator's request for information about how much money the company is making from the incinerator. Do you know what Covanta's annual profit is on the Marion County garbage incinerator?

After some bureaucratic blather, the answer I got was: NO.

I was surprised that not only won't Covanta tell state legislators how much money they're making on the garbage burner that it owns, and which Marion County pays them to run, but either Covanta won't give Marion County officials this information either, or those officials don't want to find out the profit margin because it won't support their goal of getting the renewable energy tax credits.

Since Covanta had revenues of almost $2 billion in 2019, it's difficult to feel any sympathy for the company, especially since they're being so secretive about how much money they're making from the Marion County incinerator.

Check out an excellent Statesman Journal story by Tracy Loew about the garbage burner, "Marion County wants renewable energy status for burning trash as power revenue falls." That idea is opposed by many environmental groups in Oregon.

Many of Oregon's largest environmental groups have lined up in opposition to HB 4049, saying it defeats the purpose of the Renewable Portfolio Standard, which is to create new investments in clean energy. 

Opponents include the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, Oregon Citizens' Utility Board, Oregon Environmental Council, Northwest Energy Coalition, Renewable Northwest, Oregon Chapter Sierra Club, Climate Solutions, Environment Oregon, Verde, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Beyond Toxics, 350 Salem, Clean Air Now Coalition, Zero Waste Oregon, Oregon Community Rights Network, and Oregon Solar Energy Industries Association. 

"Renewable energy credits are meant to support new renewable energy projects, not an old, polluting facility from 1987," said Damon Motz-Storey, of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.

"Every dollar that would be spent giving a corporate handout to Covanta, a multinational company, would be a dollar not spent on clean technology, such as wind and solar energy projects that promote green, living-wage jobs and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels," Motz-Storey said.

Also, there was an excellent anti-garbage burner handout at the City Club registration desk prepared by the Clean Air Now Coalition. Have a read. I just wish opponents of the polluting garbage burner had been given an opportunity to present their side at the City Club meeting, which would have made for a much more accurate and informative program.

 

Some rural Oregonians want to join Idaho. Good luck with that.

There's a movement to have the most rural Oregon counties join with Idaho so those living outside of the Willamette Valley don't have to put up with annoying democratic niceties such as elections have consequences. 

Here's what Greater Idaho would look like if that fantasy were to somehow become reality, against great odds, courtesy of a map in the Oregonian story.

This is how a USA Today story, "Secession in the Pacific Northwest? Some Oregon residents petition to join Idaho," starts out.

Frustrated by liberal policies, some Oregon residents are petitioning to leave the state –by moving the border with Idaho westward. 

The movement has secured initial approval from two counties and aims to get enough signatures to put the proposal on local ballots in November, said the group Move Oregon's Border for a Greater Idaho.

If the group succeeds, voters in southeast Oregon may see a question on whether their county should become part of Idaho by redrawing the border.

“Rural counties have become increasingly outraged by laws coming out of the Oregon Legislature that threaten our livelihoods, our industries, our wallet, our gun rights, and our values,” Mike McCarter, one of the chief petitioners, said in a press release. “We tried voting those legislators out but rural Oregon is outnumbered and our voices are now ignored. This is our last resort.”

Oh, boo-hoo. Those of us who didn't vote for Trump are equally outraged at the horrible policies emanating from the White House and Republican-controlled Senate. 

But we aren't petitioning to join Canada, though I have to admit that this idea has crossed the mind of quite a few Democrats.

Instead, what we're working hard to do is win the 2020 presidential election.

Likewise, Oregon Republicans could put more effort into taking control of the Governor's office and state legislature, something that has more chance of succeeding than the notion of rural counties joining Idaho, which I suspect is more of a public relations stunt than a serious endeavor.

(The secession group does have a Facebook page, though, with a whole 824 "likes" at the moment.)

Here's the hurdle that needs to be met by those dreaming of a Greater Idaho.

Even if Oregon’s eastern counties do vote to join Idaho, approval would then be needed from the Oregon and Idaho legislatures -- and the U.S. Congress.

So Job #1 for the secessionists should be winning Republican majorities in the state House and Senate. Good luck with that, sad-faced conservatives. Looks like you're stuck sharing Oregon with us progressives. Of course, there's another option open to you: move to Idaho.

Please, Democrats, no purity tests for the presidential candidates

Let's make this the overarching mantra for Democrats until Donald Trump is defeated in the November 2020 presidential election:

No Dem candidate is perfect, but all of them are hugely better than Trump.

Which means, ditch any thought of a purity test for the candidates still in the hunt for the Democratic nomination. I was reminded of this oh-so-important adage when I came across a piece in The Atlantic, "Bloomberg Flunks the Wokeness Test." 

Right on subtitle: Stop-and-frisk was awful. But to disqualify the former New York mayor from the presidency on that basis is to risk something more destructive: a second term for Trump. Here's an excerpt.

For some, stop-and-frisk is a deal-breaker. Note how modern—up-to-the minute, even—it seems to disqualify Bloomberg for one mistake on race, even if he would govern better than Trump has in all ways. It’s straight from the woke playbook.

Freezing out the former mayor would also be a kind of atonement for the left’s having let pass Hillary Clinton’s “superpredator” comment in the 1990s. Atonement is the operative word here. To shout down Bloomberg because of that one policy would constitute a strain of anti-racism that has all the characteristics of religion rather than rationality.

By denouncing a candidate as formidable as Bloomberg, people will show one another that they understand the evil of racism and go in grace—even on the pain of an impeached, amoral Trump being reelected.

Though I'm a proud progressive, it bothers me that all too often Democrats obsess over purity, while Republicans obsess over power -- getting and keeping it. 

So even though it makes sense to critically assess the policy positions of the Dem presidential candidates, along with their past record, both of those things are hugely less important than Job #!: defeating Trump.

This is why I couldn't care less if billionaires are contributing to someone's campaign, or if, like Bloomberg, they are a billionaire themselves. It's going to take a gigantic boatload of money to beat Trump. Whoever wants to contribute to that effort deserves applause, not criticism.

Purity tests have to take a backseat to political pragmatism. We saw what happened in 2016 when too many misguided voters sat out the election, or voted for Jill Stein, because Hillary Clinton wasn't Bernie Sanders. 

What should have been foremost in their minds was Hillary Clinton isn't Donald Trump.

Likewise, all of the Democratic candidates are so much more qualified to be president than Trump, there shouldn't be any doubt in a voter's mind to cast a ballot for any of them this November. 

Bernie Sanders...yes, he's rigid, annoying, and not the easiest guy to like. Doesn't matter. He's way better than Trump.
Pete Buttigieg...yes, he didn't handle race relations in South Bend perfectly. Doesn't matter. He's way better than Trump.
Elizabeth Warren...yes, she has waffled some on Medicare for All. Doesn't matter. She's way better than Trump.
Joe Biden...yes, he rambles and can put an audience to sleep. Doesn't matter. He's way better than Trump.
Amy Klobuchar...yes, she is a moderate who wants to improve Obamacare. Doesn't matter. She's way better than Trump.
Michael Bloomberg...yes, he embraced stop-and-frisk. Doesn't matter. He's way better than Trump.
Tom Steyer...yes, he's also a billionaire who is spending his own money freely. Doesn't matter. He's way better than Trump.

So let's thin the Democratic field for good reasons, notably the candidates' ability to defeat Trump, not for a bad reasons such as kicking someone out of contention because they failed a purity test.

Neighborhood association criticizes city officials for not enforcing tree ordinance

Way to go, South Central Association of Neighbors (SCAN) -- the neighborhood association that represents the area where Daniel and Richard Gatti knowingly destroyed four valuable street trees by topping them, yet so far haven't been required to pay the full cost of their value, as required by the City of Salem tree ordinance. 

One of the mangled Gatti trees

Here's the resolution that was passed by SCAN yesterday. 

SCAN RESOLUTION OPPOSING FAILURE TO FULLY ENFORCE THE SALEM REVISED CODE CONCERNING STREET TREE REMOVAL

Adopted by the SCAN Board on February 12, 2020

WHEREAS, on or about January 2, 2020, the property owners at 1781 Liberty Street SE in the SCAN neighborhood had an unlicensed contractor remove, without authorization, more than 30% of the crown from four mature City-owned street trees adjacent to their property; and,

WHEREAS, removing 30% or more of the crown of a tree will cause the death of the tree and is thus defined in the Salem Revised Code 86.010 as "tree removal"; and,

WHEREAS, "tree removal" under SRC 86.120(c)(1) carries a civil penalty of a fine "not to exceed $2,000.00 per violation in addition to the value of the tree as calculated in accordance with applicable administrative rules (or in the absence of administrative rules, in accordance with the most current edition of Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers "Guide for Plant Appraisal”);" and,

WHEREAS, the property owners at 1781 Liberty Street SE were recently assessed a fine of $2,000 by the City in addition to being required to negotiate a "Restoration Agreement" for removal and replacement of the four City-owned trees adjacent to their property; and,

WHEREAS, the property owners at 1781 Liberty Street SE were not required to reimburse the City for the "value of the tree[s]" as required by SRC 86.120(c)(1); and,

WHEREAS, failure of the City to fully enforce the provisions of the Salem Revised Code in the matter of unauthorized City-owned tree removal is unacceptable to SCAN neighbors and will undoubtedly result in similar incidents of this kind happening in the future.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of the South Central Neighborhood Association requests of our City staff that they not fail to fully enforce SRC 86.120(c)(1), and that the property owners at 1781 Liberty Street SE be required to reimburse the City for the value of the four City-owned trees that have been removed, following a professional appraisal of the value of the trees.

Hopefully this will spur city officials to do what they should have doing all along: enforce the damn tree ordinance!

Peter Fernandez

It really bothers me, and other tree lovers, that Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, has been choosing to not enforce the portion of the ordinance that requires someone who destroys a street tree to reimburse the city for the full value of the tree or trees. 

The City Manager and City Council should take a very close look at how Fernandez has been performing his important job. If he isn't enforcing the tree ordinance, how do we know Fernandez isn't also doing favors behind the scenes for other people who are guilty of not complying with the city's rules and regulations?

After all, we know that he made a backroom deal with the U.S. Bank president to remove four healthy, large, beautiful street trees on State Street back in 2013, because I got the public records that prove this. Yet Fernandez still has his job, and he is still failing to protect Salem's trees.

US Bank tree destruction

Here's what worries me about Bernie Sanders

Until the November election is over, I'm going to be in a perpetual state of political anxiety. Dumping Trump is super-important for lots of reasons, preserving our democracy from authoritarian rule being high on the list.

So obviously it's vital that the Democrats nominate someone who is well suited to defeat Trump. And that means winning the Electoral College, not just running up the score in the popular vote, because we saw how that worked for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. 

In short, not well.

Which is why I worry most about Bernie Sanders being the Democratic candidate.

Yes, polls show him besting Trump nationally. But the election will be won, or lost, not on the basis of national popularity, but on how Trump and whoever the Dems choose does in a handful of swing states -- which means appealing to moderate voters.

Yet Sanders isn't even a Democrat.

He has said that he will govern as a Democrat if he becomes president, but he calls himself a democratic socialist and remains an independent. This is problematic. It seems to me that anyone who wants to be the Democratic presidential nominee should be proud about being a Democrat.

A recent poll found that 53% of Americans said they wouldn't vote for a socialist, while 45% said they would. This is bad news for Sanders, though it must bring a smile to Trump's face as he envisions running against an avowed socialist.

But according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday, Americans overwhelmingly are just fine with voting for a woman, as well as a black, Hispanic or (to a somewhat lesser extent) gay candidate. The sort of candidate a majority of Americans reject?

Socialist.

The category was the only one which had a majority of Americans, 53%, declaring they would not cast a ballot for a candidate so described (45% say they would vote for a well-qualified socialist).

Then there's the fact that based on Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders isn't expanding the base of his support. Turnout was lackluster in both states, which diminishes the argument that nominating Sanders will energize young people and those who sat out the 2016 presidential election. 

Jennifer Rubin talks about this in a Washington Post opinion piece, "Bernie Sanders has some problems."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) won the New Hampshire primary in such an underwhelming fashion — the second less-than-impressive outing in what should have been two of his easiest states — that it bears consideration as to whether he is actually best positioned to win the race.

Turnout in New Hampshire did not significantly increase from 2016 to 2020, even though there was no competitive Republican primary to draw independent voters. Sanders has twice now failed to produce a promised wave of voters. Without such an influx of voters, his electability argument crumbles.

He must either appeal to a greater share of Democrats and independents than other candidates (which currently is not remotely the case), or he must bring in a flood of new voters (which also is not happening). In short, his ceiling is still stuck around 25 percent, just as it has been from the onset of the race.

Also worrisome is that at 53%, Sanders supporters are the least likely to say they will support the eventual Democratic presidential nominee even if it is not their favored candidate. (Yang supporters were even less, at 50%, but Yang has dropped out of the race.)

Sanders needs to do a better job of telling his supporters that they absolutely, positively, without-a-doubt have to vote for whoever the Dems nominate, because the alternative is another four years of Trump.

This points to the rigidity and fanaticism of much of Sanders' base, the so-called "Bernie Bros."

They've been attacking the Nevada Culinary Union after the union pointed out that Sanders' Medicare for All proposal threatened the private heath insurance plan that union members currently have and like.

Argüello-Kline added: “Workers should have the right to choose to keep the health care Culinary Union members have built, sacrificed for, and went on strike for 6 years, 4 months and 10 days to protect.”

“It’s disappointing that Senator Sanders’ supporters have viciously attacked the Culinary Union and working families in Nevada simply because our union has provided facts on what certain health care proposals might do to take away the system of care we have built over eight decades,” she said, noting that Sanders had participated in Culinary town halls and toured the union’s facilities.

Lastly, I'm dubious that what American voters are looking for is a different old, angry-sounding, white guy to replace the current old, angry-sounding, white guy who inhabits the White House.

(If Sanders ends up becoming president, naturally I'll be pleased to take back those words and admit I was wrong.)

Here's what really scares me about Donald Trump

As I said a few days ago, progressives like me are going through an anxious period. There's no obvious Democratic presidential candidate who seems fully up to the job of beating Trump in the November 2020 election. 

Meanwhile, polls show that Trump has managed to hold on to his base of support, and maybe even has expanded it a bit. This befuddles people, again, like me, who wonder what 44% or so of the country sees in a guy who is so obviously immoral, a habitual liar, and mean.

A book I just finished re-reading gave me a new perspective on this question. And that scares me, because the explanation makes so much sense, and shows why it is so difficult to get Trump supporters to stop fawning over him.

Here's an excerpt from a blog post I wrote about the book back in December 2014, "The social value of getting wasted."  Following the excerpt I'll explain what this has to do with Trump's popularity.

With New Year's Eve coming up soon, this seems to be a good time to share some passages about the positive side of intoxication from a book I just finished, "Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity."

The author, Edward Slingerland, discusses the ins and outs (along with the yin and yang) of wu-wei, the elusive quality of effortlessly flowing with life so much praised in Daoist and Confucian philosophy. 

Slingerland, a Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, clued me in to some aspects of both Asian and Western culture that had largely escaped me before.

For example, why getting wasted -- imbibing copious amounts of alcohol or some other intoxicating, mind-altering, inhibition-dampening substance -- is so important in closing business deals, as well as in other social contexts. 

The basic reason is that we admire and trust good-hearted people who act naturally, spontaneously, unselfconsciously. Schemers who always seem to be calculating what to do and how to act, not nearly so much, even if they proclaim their beneficent intentions.

Slingerland explains from both a philosophical and neuroscientific outlook that virtue (de, in Chinese) can be faked by what often is called "cold cognition."

That's the slower, more intellectual, thoughtful part of the brain's workings. This is contrasted with "hot cognition," which is faster, more emotional and intuitive. So, Slingerland says:

These techniques take advantage of the fact that deception is fundamentally a cold-cognition act and relies on cognitive control centers. This means that if we can impair the cognitive control abilities of people we're trying to judge, we'll do a better job of sussing them out: they will be less likely to confuse our cheater-control systems.

This, of course, is the rationale for so-called "truth serum" drugs used by interrogators. Lessen inhibitions and what a person says should more accurately reflect what is really inside them, not just how they want to appear to outsiders.

OK, you may have noted that I said we admire and trust good-hearted people who act naturally, spontaneously, unselfconsciously.

Scratch the "good-hearted" and you've got a pretty decent description of Trump -- though I'm sure most of his supporters view him as possessing a good heart, albeit a decidedly weird one, given Trump's habitual vicious attacks on anyone he views as opposing him.

Trump doesn't drink, but he acts like the emotional, intuitive, spontaneous person in the thralls of "hot cognition." His rallies are popular with Trump supporters because he offers them an uncensored view of what's on his mind. (Which is why those rallies horrify the rest of us.)

This goes a long way toward explaining why many voters didn't trust Hillary Clinton, even though she was a much more trustworthy person than Donald Trump. With Trump, what you see is what you get. With Clinton, it was difficult to tell whether the persona she presented outwardly truly was who she was deep down.

So what scares me is that all of the rational, reasonable, well-though-out policy prescriptions and criticisms of Trump the eventual 2020 Democratic presidential candidate presents to the public may not be enough to defeat Trump if the Dem isn't able to demonstrate the sort of natural, spontaneous, unselfconscious personality that appeals to the evolutionarily ancient "hot cognition" part of the human brain.

if you watched the Academy Awards last night, this theme was on full display, as it is every year of the Oscars. 

When someone who has won the film editing award, say, walks on stage, steps up to the microphone, and pulls out a piece of paper that they proceed to read, thanking everyone they want to thank in words they wrote before coming to the event, I think, "Oh, no, this is so boring."

Contrast that with someone like Joaquin Phoenix. After winning the Best Actor award for his role as the Joker, Phoenix rubbed his face, looked around, and proceeded to give a gripping acceptance speech that was mostly about how we humans are screwing up the natural world.

He said he'd been thinking a lot about what he said, so it wasn't totally spontaneous. But it had the ring of spontaneity and sincerity, which is why I remember his remarks so much more clearly than the scripted and predictable remarks of other Oscar winners.

Let me be clear. I'd rather have any boring predictable scripted Democratic nominee become president, rather than Donald Trump. What worries me, though, is that the nominee would be much more able to beat Trump if they can muster the sort of "can't look away" spontaneity that Trump and Phoenix possess, albeit in vastly different fashions.

And so far I haven't seen that from the Democratic presidential candidates. 

Anxiety among progressives is real. Here's how I'm coping.

Don't get me wrong. It's always a good time to be a progressive leftie. But at the moment I'm not feeling much pleasurable buzz from being on the right, or better put, wisest, way of looking at the political world.

Let's count some of the reasons.

(1) Trump is emboldened following his impeachment acquittal. He's shown no sign of repentance for trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election. Aside from Senator Romney, congressional Republicans are kissing Trump's ass with disgusting relish.

(2) The Iowa caucuses were a disaster. The messed-up tally of results makes Democrats look incompetent.

(3) And the two candidates who came out on top in Iowa are Sanders, an avowed socialist, and Buttigieg, who basically has zero black support. I much prefer Buttigieg to Biden in the moderate camp, but I worry about the ability of either Sanders or Buttigieg to either beat Trump in November or bring the Democratic Party together -- a necessity for beating Trump.

(4) Trump's approval rating has shot up recently. Hopefully this is an aberration. However, his base of support certainly hasn't eroded, and it may be enlarging.

(5) Here in Oregon, the lumber trucks have arrived in Salem to once again protest the current version of the cap-and-trade bill to reduce carbon pollution so our planet remains fit for human habitation. Republicans likely will walkout like they did last session if it appears the bill has any chance of passing, dooming it for lack of a quorum.

So us progressives are in an awkward period.

Neither the candidate who can beat Trump, or the path to do so, is at all clear. Meanwhile Trump supporters and Republicans are rejoicing in Trump's State of the Union speech and the nasty in-your-face divisive remarks he made at, of all things, a Prayer Breakfast. 

Plus, Oregon Democrats seem poised to repeat the depressing spectacle of the 2019 legislative session: allow Republicans to stage a walkout without any negative consequences, after which the cap-and-trade bill will be shelved until 2021 as the Earth continues to warm dangerously.

Everybody has their own way of coping with anxiety. I don't claim that my approach to dealing with the worries I've just enumerated are any sort of universal worry-salve. These are simply some of the things I try to keep in mind when progressive nightmares haunt me.

Everything changes. No one can know what will happen in the next 24 hours, much less between now and election day in November, or now and the ending of the short Oregon legislative session in early March. Surprises are going to be plentiful. They're as likely to be progressive-friendly as the reverse. So let's enjoy surfing the wave of political change and hope we progressives don't wipe out.

Negativity is a human predilection. Most people, me included for sure, find it easier to visualize bad things happening than good things. In early human history worriers who feared that the rustle in the brush was a saber-toothed tiger fared better in the evolutionary sweepstakes than the optimists who thought it was just the wind. Thus it's psychologically likely that many or most of my political anxieties aren't going to come to pass, or will be less extreme than I expect.

Life is much grander than the latest headlines. I'm a news junkie. But often I stick the most recent issue of TIME or The New Yorker in a drawer and don't get around to reading it for weeks, or even months sometimes. Then I skip much of the issue, because what was so important then, isn't now. Other things are. And rarely do either the old things or the new things impact my daily life, which exists on a different level than national, state, or local politics.

Close to home, progress is always possible. While progressive anxieties tend to skew nationally, obviously the best ability to produce positive progressive outcomes is at the local level, right here in Salem. Yesterday I got to hear Virginia Stapleton speak about why she's running to replace retiring Ward 1 city councilor Cara Kaser. Stapleton was so sincere, eloquent, inspiring, and persuasive, listening to her raised my progressive spirits. A lot.

Virginia Stapleton

The way Democratic primaries work, Oregon is going to have little say in who the Dem presidential nominee is going to be once our May election rolls around. All we'll be able to do is passively watch other states vote (or, in the case of Iowa, screw up voting). 

But when I contributed some money to the campaigns of three progressive Salem City Council candidates about a week ago, I felt really good about playing a small role in what hopefully will be the victories of Virginia Stapleton, Vanessa Nordyke, and Trevor Phillips. 

Doing something concrete to aid local progressive causes wasn't exactly a cure for my above-mentioned anxieties about national and state politics. However, it definitely alleviated some of the symptoms. Here's links to the web sites of Stapleton, Nordyke, and Phillips if you feel like doing some healing yourself.

https://electvirginiastapleton.com
https://electvanessanordyke.com
https://electtrevorphillips.com