Salem Political Snark

Patriot Prayer holding May 1 rally in Salem's Riverfront Park

The right-wing wackos are coming back to Salem!  

Well, judging from this notice, most never left our area, they've just been silently cooking up fresh conspiracy theories to keep their reality-denying minds firmly at home in Crazy Town.

Newsweek had a story about the rally yesterday, "Far-Right Patriot Prayer Plans Oregon Return Alongside GOP Rep. Mike Nearman." 

The far-right group Patriot Prayer is planning a return to Salem, Oregon, in May to hold a gun rights event.

The rally is being promoted online by the group's leader Joey Gibson and is scheduled to take place on May 1 at Riverfront Park.

...Oregon state Rep. Mike Nearman and Jo Rae Perkins, a prominent QAnon supporter who was the Republican Senate nominee in Oregon before losing to Democratic incumbent Jeff Merkley in November, are among those listed as attendees at the May 1 event.

Patriot Prayer, along with fellow extremist group Proud Boys, has held frequent rallies and demonstrations in Salem and Portland, Oregon, down the years.

On December 21, far-right demonstrators, including Patriot Prayer members, forced their way into the Oregon Capitol while protesting coronavirus restrictions in the state.

An investigation was launched into Rep. Nearman after surveillance footage showed him allowing extremists to gain entry to the Capitol building.

In January, Nearman was stripped of his committee responsibilities and told he must give 24 hours notice before coming to the Capitol building as part of a number of restrictions imposed on him over his role in the breach.

You'd think that given the problems Patriot Prayer members have caused in the past, the City of Salem would be reluctant to give a permit for the May 1 rally. 

Think again.

Apparently City officials still are allowing groups to use Salem parks as they wish without a permit, a controversial practice that's been in effect since the Covid pandemic struck last year.

And the Salem Police Department is being decidedly non-transparent about the rally. Here's a screenshot of the uninformative post about the event on the City of Salem Facebook page.


Ooh! A message for the Salem community. I could hardly wait to click on the link and see what sort of rally at Riverfront Park is expected Saturday. 

This is what I learned.

The Salem Police Department is aware of a rally which is being advertised for Saturday, May 1, 2021, at 12:00 p.m. in Riverfront Park.

Wow, thanks for nothing, Salem Police Department. No mention of what sort of rally. No mention of who is sponsoring the rally. No mention of the right-winger/QAnon names headlining the rally.

Since this is a Second Amendment event, I'm guessing quite a few attendees will bring their assault rifles and dress up in their best militia costumes.

The forecast for Saturday is mostly sunny with a high of 63 degrees. Great day to take the kids to the park. 

Or, it would be if the City of Salem wasn't allowing Patriot Prayer types free rein to do whatever they want in Riverfront Park at a gun rally that day.

Unfortunately, there's a pretty good chance that counter-protesters also will show up on Saturday, which could make the situation even worse.

I'm all for free speech. What I'm not for is City officials using a lame Covid excuse to justify allowing any and all groups to use Salem's parks as they wish with no permit required.

NAACP calls on Kari Zohner to end her school board campaign

The Salem-Keizer NAACP is calling on a candidate for the Salem-Keizer school board, Kari Zohner, to drop out of the race after she trashed the memory of George Floyd following the conviction of the police officer who murdered him, Derek Chauvin.

The NAACP issued its statement Wednesday night.

“We understand and support the First Amendment right to free speech. However, this hateful rhetoric is founded in racism and has no place in the auspices of the Salem-Keizer School board or any elected office. We must hold our leaders accountable and make clear that this behavior will not be tolerated in any form. The Candidate for School Board Zone 1 must rescind her candidacy immediately,” the statement said.

It was Zohner's comment on an Oregon State University Facebook post that got her in trouble.

That's a really nasty comment for anyone to make. Yet Zohner isn't just anyone, she wants to guide the education of many thousands of students from a Zone 1 school board position. 

UPDATE: Just got this screenshot of a Facebook comment from a former West Salem High School student who has some serious accusations about bad behavior from Zohner when she was a coach at the school. The student also asks Zohner to give up on running for the school board.

Zohner's lack of compassion and racial insensitivity should cause voters to cast their ballot for a much better Zone 1 candidate, Osvaldo Avila. 

Here's Avila's background. 

Osvaldo is the son of Mexican immigrant farmworkers who had few opportunities in life. His father had to drop out of school in the third grade. Growing up, teachers dismissed Osvaldo’s potential, and called him “a future ditch digger.”

Yet, he believed in his education, and ultimately earned a Master’s in Educational Leadership and Policy from PSU. He has had an 18-year career in Higher Education, focusing on helping Latinx students gain access to and succeed in college.

He is now a Talent, Innovation, & Equity Administrator with the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission. To learn more go to: https://www.osvaldo4skboard.com/.

By contrast, here's the full statement from the Salem-Keizer NAACP about Kari Zohner.

Salem-Keizer NAACP Condemns School Board Candidate Statement
Equating the Honoring of Justice for George Floyd to the Eulogizing of a Criminal

The Salem-Keizer NAACP condemns the recent remark made by School Board Candidate Kari Zohner that equated the memorializing of George Floyd, in the wake of the rare moment of justice in the conviction of his killer, to that of eulogizing a criminal. It is critical that we as a community make a clear and unambiguous statement denouncing these hateful remarks and call on this candidate to step down from the race for Salem-Keizer School Board.

In comments, since deleted, made on an Oregon State University Facebook post April 20, 2021, Candidate for School Board Zone 1, Kari Zohner, remarked “And now I’m no longer following you. My Alma Mater. Eulogize a criminal..great.” Candidate Zohner then proceeded to reply to individuals responding to her remarks by belittling them, such as a reply to an educator with the remark, “ah.. an educator. Shocking that you have such an eloquent stance.”

We understand and support the First Amendment right to free speech. However, this hateful rhetoric is founded in racism and has no place in the auspices of the Salem-Keizer School board or any elected office. We must hold our leaders accountable and make clear that this behavior will not be tolerated in any form. The Candidate for School Board Zone 1 must rescind her candidacy immediately.

Derek Chauvin conviction just small step toward police reform

I'm glad that I was in my car, listening to CNN, when the judge read the jury verdict in the Derek Chauvin case.

As I heard the judge say "guilty of second degree murder," "guilty of third degree murder," "guilty of manslaughter," my right arm made the same happy motion upward as the arms of the women below.

But right next to this Washington Post headline story was a disturbing story of a police killing of a 16 year old girl in Columbus, Ohio, "Ohio police fatally shoot teen girl just before Chauvin verdict: 'This stuff just never ends.'"

This happened about the same time as the Chauvin verdict was being read.

Paula Bryant told 10TV that her daughter was 16 years old, “a very loving, peaceful little girl.” Hazel Bryant, who identified herself as the victim’s aunt, told the Columbus Dispatch that her niece got into a fight with another person at her foster home on Legion Lane. Bryant said the victim had a knife but had dropped it before an officer shot her multiple times.

There's something horribly, terribly, shockingly, inexcusably wrong with policing in the United States. Too many police officers are incompetent cowards who shouldn't have a badge, nor a gun.

A 16 year old girl who has dropped a knife shouldn't be killed after being shot four times. More: a 16 year old girl who hasn't dropped a knife shouldn't be shot by police.

If a police officer can't handle a 16 year old girl with a knife, especially if she has dropped it, that officer should never have been allowed to join the force And he or she deserves to be charged with manslaughter, and maybe even murder, as Derek Chauvin was.

The whole approach of policing has to change in this country. So let's do this in Salem.

Police Chief Womack needs to institute an iron-clad policy that use of force is the last resort when dealing with citizens, not the first resort. Deescalation has to be Job #1 for every Salem police officer. If force is used, it had damn well better be completely justified, or the officer who applies that force should be severely disciplined.

We have to do away with the idea that police officers are special people.

Actually, they are ordinary people who carry a gun and can arrest others. We also have to stop viewing police work as especially dangerous. It isn't, being the 22nd most dangerous profession. 

How dangerous is it to be a police officer? Working as a police officer is about 4.1 times as dangerous compared with the average job nationwide, based upon the workplace fatality rate. Police officers have a workplace fatality rate similar to maintenance workers, construction workers, and heavy vehicle mechanics.

Being a crossing guard is much more dangerous, ranking #12.

So the next time you encounter a crossing guard, say "Thank you for your service." Say that much more loudly than you'd tell a police officer the same thing, because a crossing guard is putting their life on the line to a considerably greater extent.

We need police. But we don't need the kind of policing that we have now. 

As noted in a recent blog post, the Salem police department budget should be cut by several million dollars to pay for a crisis response team that would handle a fifth or so of current calls that a police officer is sent out on. And that team would do a better job.

There also is little or no need for Salem police to be making routine traffic stops. A Washington Post opinion piece makes the case for this in "Traffic enforcement is broken in the U.S. Here's how we can fix it." This is one idea.

First, we can take much of traffic enforcement out of the hands of police. Some places are shifting traffic enforcement to unarmed traffic safety experts. Relatedly, we can make better use of transportation design and technology. There are legitimate concerns about where red-light and speed cameras are placed, but I’ve never seen one pepper-spray a motorist or show a strange proclivity for targeting Black drivers when it was light enough to see skin color. This shift would reserve police stops for immediate threats — such as drunken driving — that arguably require a police response.

What Salem and our nation as a whole needs is a smaller, better trained, and more professional police force. The focus should be on public safety, not on policing. Policing is only one way to ensure public safety, and arguably not the most important way.

The Salem City Council can help bring about this shift by closely scrutinizing the police department budget instead of assuming that, of course, it needs to be raised every year.

Actually, there are good reasons to markedly reduce the police budget, with that money being reallocated to better ways of fostering public safety.

Police budget should be cut to pay for crisis response team

City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke is pushing for Salem to have a crisis response team similar to the CAHOOTS program that has been successfully used in Eugene since 1989. 

Here's a description of CAHOOTS, courtesy of the White Bird Clinic.

31 years ago the City of Eugene, Oregon developed an innovative community-based public safety system to provide mental health first response for crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction. White Bird Clinic launched CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) as a community policing initiative in 1989.

The CAHOOTS model has been in the spotlight recently as our nation struggles to reimagine public safety. The program mobilizes two-person teams consisting of a medic (a nurse, paramedic, or EMT) and a crisis worker who has substantial training and experience in the mental health field.

The CAHOOTS teams deal with a wide range of mental health-related crises, including conflict resolution, welfare checks, substance abuse, suicide threats, and more, relying on trauma-informed de-escalation and harm reduction techniques.

CAHOOTS staff are not law enforcement officers and do not carry weapons; their training and experience are the tools they use to ensure a non-violent resolution of crisis situations. They also handle non-emergent medical issues, avoiding costly ambulance transport and emergency room treatment.

In 2017, the most recent year shown on the White Bird Clinic web page, CAHOOTS teams answered 17% of the Eugene Police Department's call volume. Yes, 17%. 

That's a big savings, given the much lower cost of CAHOOTS staff compared to police officers. This chart shows that in 2017 CAHOOTS diversions saved the Eugene Police Department $12 million, with the department budget being $51.3 million in that year.

Steve Powers, the City Manager for the City of Salem, is proposing a $50.5 million budget for the police department in FY 2022 -- almost exactly what the Eugene Police Department budget was in 2017.

Eugene is about the same size as Salem. The CAHOOTS budget is about $2.1 million a year.

So it sure seems like one way to pay for a CAHOOTS-style crisis response team here would be to take a couple of million dollars from the Salem Police Department budget. 

Even if the initial savings from a Salem crisis response team was only 1/6 of the savings Eugene had in 2017, a Salem CAHOOTS costing $2 million a year would pay for itself.

Unfortunately, so far City Manager Powers isn't putting any money in his proposed budget for a local CAHOOTS. So says a Salem Reporter story, "Salem residents call for a crisis response team in city budget."

As Salem begins putting together its budget, city residents have a clear request: fund a crisis response team.

City leaders have previously voiced support for a local program modeled after Eugene’s CAHOOTS, where a crisis worker and EMT respond to low-level 911 calls for people having mental health crises, rather than police. But there’s no funding for such a program in the draft city budget City Manager Steve Powers presented Wednesday to the city council.

During Wednesday’s Budget Committee Meeting, a couple people testified in support over Zoom, and another 81 wrote in favor of allocating money toward such a program in public testimony. One man even wrote a poem.

However, the City Council has the final say on the City of Salem budget. Hopefully money for a local CAHOOTS program will be in the budget for the next fiscal year.

Since the program would markedly reduce the number of calls Salem police officers would need to respond to, it makes sense to fund a crisis response team out of the Salem Police Department budget.

This is the sort of reimagining police work that needs to happen if police departments are to regain the community trust that's been diminished recently. 

Few CAHOOTS calls require an armed police officer. Less than 1% in Eugene (150 out of 24,000, or 0.6%).

Trained mental health workers are going to handle suicidal people and others in crisis much better than police officers. So not only will a Salem CAHOOTS save millions of dollars, it will improve the quality of service to people in distress.

 

No-notice tree removals make Salem resident angry

It hurts to see a tree company truck pull up in front of your house, then watch workers remove a beloved street tree -- all with no communication from the City of Salem about why the tree needed to be destroyed.

This happened to Heather Cohen, a resident of the Morningside neighborhood. The tree that was removed is the middle one in the photo below. 

Cohen told me in an email, "Survived the wild fires, survived the ice storm, didn't survive the City of Salem."

Here's an email that Cohen sent to Mayor Chuck Bennett on April 13.

Yesterday the city of Salem took down the beautiful maple tree which shaded my house as well as other neighborhood trees. My maple had a few slightly damaged branches from the ice storm but was far from diseased. There were no power lines in proximity.

 

I called the Forester and emailed the city of Salem pictures and have not received any communication back. They took down five trees (see images attached) on two streets (Anneka Loop and Chaparral Dr) in my Morningside neighborhood. It seems statistically unlikely there would be five irreparably damaged trees on two city blocks.

 

For a city that supposedly values its trees, they seem to be cutting them down indiscriminately if they have any minor issues that require maintenance. That and the lack of communication with the community is very unprofessional.

 

Almost three years living in my house, I’ve never received any communication from the city until they mow down a cherished maple tree without even a notification or a reason.  I understand the city is under a lot of stress since the ice storm but I do think there are a lot more stories like mine that are very disturbing.

 

I find it ironic that I cannot trim a city tree without being fined, but the city can mow them down without a second thought or a word to the neighbors. I would’ve gladly taken ownership and paid maintenance fees for the maple that the city killed. The city should not be in charge of our trees.

Thank you,
Heather Cohen

l feel Cohen's pain. It hurts to lose a tree that means a lot to you. It hurts even more when the loss isn't due to a natural event, but happens without notice from the City of Salem. 

This shouldn't happen. But it did. A sad stump speaks silently about what happened.

Here's a message Cohen shared with me that she got from the Urban Forester, Milan Davis. 

Heather, I am sorry to hear that you are upset with the city over our management of trees.  There are six full time staff of the Urban Forestry Division and every one of us care deeply about the trees in Salem. 

I can assure you we are taking steps to protect and retain as many trees as we can that have been damaged from the storm.  As for your tree I did not make the inspection report for removal, but the determination was made that the two trees adjacent to that tree would have a better chance to thrive and live longer if the damaged tree were removed.

The tree closest to the driveway will now have an opportunity to grow with a central leader and develop in to a much more stable an[d] uniform tree.  Had the two trees continued to compete, with the damaged tree not having a central leader many of the secondary branches could have contributed to future problems for that trees. 

As for the other trees removed in your neighborhood, two of the birches were in very poor condition and had bronze birch borer infestations and the maple tree was a hazard considering it had lost a large lead and was susceptible to failure and should not be retained.  I attached pictures of the trees we removed.

Please let me know if you have other concerns.

Cordially,

Milan Davis
Urban Forester, Parks Supervisor III
City of Salem | Public Works Department

Cohen responded this way.

Aren’t you supposed to post a notification before removal? There was no warning and no communication with the community.

I would like to see the report documenting that the removal of five trees in a two block area was necessary. As for the tree across from me with an unstable lead[er], it was damaged more by previous trimming attempts by the city of Salem, not by the ice storm itself. 

 

There is supposed to be a process here and there was none. 

I'm siding with Cohen. Here's why. 

Section 86.090 of the Salem tree ordinance says: (dbh means diameter at breast height, 4.5 feet from the ground.)

(1) Where the City proposes to remove a City tree smaller than ten inches dbh, no posting shall be required.

(2) Where the City proposes to remove a City tree larger than ten inches dbh, the City shall post notice of the removal as near as practicable to the tree to be removed for a period of 15 days prior to the removal.

From a photo above, it sure looks like the tree that was removed had a rather large diameter. If it wasn't 10 inches at four and a half feet above the ground, it must have been darn close. 

Regardless, this was a substantial tree, not a sapling. 

City employees in the Urban Forestry Division should recognize that removing a generally healthy tree from in front of someone's house is a big deal to the resident, even though it may be business as usual for the employee.

It would have been easy for a City of Salem employee to contact Heather Cohen and other neighbors before the trees were removed. A little communication goes a long way. 

Explain why the tree removals supposedly are necessary. Listen to the response from neighbors. Allow them to contact a licensed arborist for a second opinion if they want to pay for this. 

It only takes a few minutes to cut down a tree. It takes many years for a replacement tree to grow to the same size. The City of Salem should err on the side of caution when removing street trees.

In this case, the Urban Forester acknowledged that the maple wasn't a danger or diseased. It had a few problems, as many trees do, and was growing close to two other trees.

So why not take a bit of extra time and reach out to nearby neighbors, rather than letting the roar of chainsaws be how the neighborhood learns five street trees are being killed?

Let's stop talking about "accidental" police shootings

Another day, another black man "accidentally" shot and killed by a police officer. 

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The suburban Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a 20-year-old unarmed Black man during a traffic stop Sunday apparently meant to fire a Taser but instead made an “accidental discharge” from her gun, the police chief said Monday.

This is stretching the meaning of accidental beyond the bounds where the word makes sense.

An accidental discharge of a gun would happen if, say, it was lying on a table during an earthquake with the safety off, fell, hit the floor, and somehow the trigger was pulled from all the shaking.

By contrast, this police officer acted in a way that wasn't at all accidental, given her experience and, one must assume, her training.

The officer was identified Monday evening as Officer Kim Potter, who has been with the department for 26 years. She remains on administrative leave, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced.

Ah, administrative leave. This is the initial consequence, and sometimes the only consequence, when a police officer kills someone who is unarmed. 

Officer Kim Potter gets to spend time at home, working on her excuses for why she killed Daunte Wright, while Wright doesn't get to do anything, having had his life snuffed out at the age of 20 after being pulled over for a traffic violation.

Daunte Wright

Let's take a look at the dictionary definition of "accidental." 

Was Wright's killing unexpected or by chance? Sadly, no.

Police killings of unarmed black men and women are distressingly frequent, so not unexpected. A spinning roulette wheel ends up in a certain position randomly. That isn't the case with a police officer pulling out their gun and firing it at someone. So not by chance.

Words both illuminate and disguise. That's the nature of words, decidedly imperfect abstract reflections of a complex reality that defies simplistic categorizations.

English is in love with nouns. This produces a more static thing-oriented view of reality than other languages, such as classical Chinese, that view reality as processes, actions, movement.

So we say, the shooting was an accident. Or, the car crash was an accident. 

This leads to a viewpoint that downplays all of the moving parts of reality that led to the shooting or car crash. Instead, "accident" places the focus on a static happening divorced from a larger span of time and space.

As many commentators much more knowledgeable than I am about systemic racism and police maltreatment of BIPOC individuals have pointed out, our outrage at specific episodes of police brutality needs to take place in a broader context.

The lawyer for Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd, is pointing to details in the prosecution's case that, he hopes, will lead to the acquittal of his client.

If Officer Potter is charged with negligent homicide or manslaughter, the same microscopic attention to what happened with the Daunte Wright traffic stop tragedy will occur.

Which misses the most important point: policing in the United States is massively screwed-up.

So the killings of black men that attract the most attention are the tip of a much larger Failure of Our Justice System iceberg.

We jail a much higher proportion of our population than other countries. Once incarcerated, we treat prisoners badly, focusing on harsh punishment rather than compassionate rehabilitation. Our police departments have become excessively militarized. Too many police officers are unfit to carry a gun, being prone to escalate encounters with citizens in a macho fashion rather than engage in deescalation.

All that doesn't excuse bad behavior by police officers.

But zeroing in on what Derek Chauvin or Kim Potter did, as outrageous as what they did was, can distract from the urgent need to reform policing in ways that, over time, will markedly reduce unnecessary police killings.

No chief of police should ever call a killing "accidental."

Officer Potter wouldn't have needed to pull out a Taser, much less a gun, if she had been operating within a policing environment that viewed the use of force as a last resort, not the first thing that came to mind when she saw Daunte Wright get back in his car after an attempt was made to handcuff him.

Let Wright drive away. Potter and the other officers knew who he was. Probably he was going home. There was no need to Taser him. And there damn well was no need to kill him.

School board chair Chandragiri insults student journalist

Hard to see how this action by Salem-Keizer School Board chair Satya Chandragiri is anything short of flat-out outrageous. 

Eddy Binford-Ross is editor-in-chief of South Salem High School's paper, the Clypian.

After getting national recognition for covering Black Lives Matter protests last year, she spent months researching and writing a tell-all expose of how screwed-up the school board is, "Scandals, Special Interests and Dysfunction Plague School Board."

Binford-Ross won a richly deserved 2021 Oregon High School Journalist of the Year award. She was set to be recognized at the April 13 school board meeting.

But Chandragiri decided to put off the recognition of Binford-Ross until after the May school board election, conjuring up a highly dubious excuse in an attempt to disguise his disdain for how Binford-Ross revealed the sleazy, stinky mess that calls itself the Salem-Keizer School Board.

A Salem Reporter story has a right-on headline.

Excerpt from that story:

The board had Binford-Ross’ recognition on a draft agenda for Tuesday following a planning meeting earlier this week, said Chandragiri.

He said the article largely recapped existing information about the board and that he didn’t take issue with it. But Chandragiri said after the agenda was drafted, a community member sent him a screenshot of a March 24 Facebook post by the Salem Democratic Socialists of America. 

The page shared Binford-Ross’ article, saying “This in-depth article shows why we need (to) take back our school board!” and endorsing the liberal slate of school board candidates in the May election.

Chandragiri said that made him concerned that honoring Binford-Ross now would be seen as endorsing the board candidates mentioned in the post. He said he didn’t want politics to detract from Binford-Ross’ recognition and intends to spotlight her after the May election.

“If there is a controversy in these weeks before the election that would really distract us,” he told Salem Reporter. “Our board should be only focused on students.”

Hey, Chair Chandragiri, you've just manufactured a much bigger controversy than going ahead with recognizing Eddy Binford-Ross at next Tuesday's school board meeting would have created.

What Chandragiri has done is make it even more abundantly clear why the conservative cabal of school board members factually criticized in Binford-Ross' expose needs to be tossed out of office.

A Statesman-Journal story contains an astoundingly hypocritical and misguided quote from Chandragiri. 

"Is there a risk that (the) district will be perceived as actively endorsing the democratic socialist of America party?" Chandragiri wrote in an email. "I would like our public schools to remain non partisan and stay focused to what we should be doing. Even the appearance like conflict of interest can be misinterpreted."

What a bunch of B.S.

Chandragiri supposedly is worried about the school board looking like it has a conflict of interest because -- don't try to follow the logic here, because there isn't any -- a socialist group cited the Binford-Ross expose in calling for a fresh slate of school board candidates to be elected in May.

No one on the school board, including Chandragiri, has called into question the accuracy of what Binford-Ross wrote about the school board.

This includes the fact that "In 2019, Chair Satya Chandragiri received over $11,500 from Oregon Right to Life and the Oregon Right to Life PAC for his school board campaign."

Also, "Many of the current school board directors ran for the school board after they failed in political campaigns for public office at the state level. Chandragiri ran for and lost the Republican primary for Oregon House of Representatives District 19 in 2018, right before his bid for school board."

So Chandragiri should be mocked for his ridiculous assertion that the school board can't recognize Eddy Binford-Ross because it needs to remain non-partisan.

Actually, the Salem-Keizer School Board already is highly partisan.

Chandragiri and other members accept big bucks from Oregon Right to Life, a hugely partisan special interest group. And Chandragiri tried to be elected to the Oregon legislature as a Republican, an obviously partisan political party. Binford-Ross documents other partisan activities of school board members in her expose.

It seems clear that Chandragiri is punishing Binford-Ross because she did what all good journalists do: speak truth to power.

Chandragiri doesn't like that truth coming out before the school board election because it threatens his ability to keep promoting his right-wing views along with the current conservative majority on the board.

Christy Perry, the Superintendent of Salem-Keizer schools, saw through Chandragiri's game. 

Chandragiri texted Salem-Keizer Superintendent Christy Perry Friday saying he wanted to pull the item from the agenda and delay it until after the election.

...Perry responded that she and communications director Sylvia McDaniel would notify Binford-Ross and her principal.

“This feels really wrong. I just need you to know that,” Perry said in her message.

I'll end by pointing out that the Salem Democratic Socialists of American group wasn't alone in publicizing the Binford-Ross expose and calling for a new slate of school board members.

A link to the expose was shared on the Salem Resists Pacebook group. I shared the expose on three Facebook pages that I manage. So Chandragiri was just making stuff up when he claimed to be upset that the Democratic Socialists post would somehow taint the upcoming election.

Again, what Chandragiri has done is draw attention to what he doesn't think deserves attention. Which is why I'm sharing a screenshot of that post.

So senseless: Salem police kill suicidal man

It's not as infuriating as the George Floyd murder by a Minneapolis police officer, but I'm still deeply bothered by a Salem police officer, Clinton Sealey, killing a suicidal man, Natzeryt Viertel.

Neighbors say that Viertel struggled with mental health issues. He was threatening to take his life. He had a gun.

That shouldn't be a death sentence. The Salem Police Department failed Viertel. He should have gotten help from the police, not bullets in his body.

Almost certainly Chief Womack and others in the department will find excuses for why Viertel was killed. But those excuses won't bring Viertel back to life.

A KATU News reporter asked a great question. Was a mental health crisis specialist called in by Salem police?

I could be wrong, but it appears from a Salem Reporter story that Officer Sealey shot Viertel prior to an attempt being made to defuse the situation by talking to Viertel. 

Police said firefighters responded to the area about 5:15 p.m. on reports that the man had injured himself and “the man threatened them with a firearm.”

The man then confronted police officers “and an officer fired and hit him. Despite lifesaving attempts he was pronounced deceased at the scene,” the statement said.

Maybe Sealey had no alternative but to kill Viertel. That needs to be proven, though. I find it hard to believe that police officers had no options other than to shoot a suicidal man. 

We need to learn exactly how Viertel "confronted" the officers. Did he verbally threaten them? Did he point his gun at them? 

Neither of those actions justify killing Viertel if the officers had the option to withdraw behind their vehicles and make an attempt to talk to Viertel, hopefully with the aid of a Crisis Response mental health professional.

Back in 2012 Salem police killed a suicidal man armed with a gun after responding to a mental health call. A July 2020 KGW News follow-up story says:

On the night of October 21, 2012, police responded to a call for a welfare check at Chase’s Salem home, where he lived with his father. A friend had reported Chase was suicidal, under the influence of Xanax and had his father’s gun. He was also upset after having lost his wallet and cellphone.

When officers arrived, Chase wasn’t there. Police waited more than an hour until Chase came walking slowly, in the dark toward the home on Southeast Scenic Drive.

Salem police said Chase did not respond to officer commands to stop and show his hands. Police said an officer fired when Chase reached behind his back, and pulled out a gun.

He died at the scene.

A grand jury cleared the Salem police officer who shot and killed Chase of any criminal wrongdoing.

In a civil lawsuit, filed on behalf of Chase’s family, attorneys argued Salem officers did not identify themselves as police, nor did they give Chase time to respond to commands while blinding him with bright lights. Chase’s family was nearby and witnessed his death.

In 2016, the city of Salem settled the wrongful death lawsuit and agreed to pay $100,000.

As part of the settlement, the city promised to develop a protocol for dealing with family members of victims of officer-involved shooting, create a policy to deal with mental health issue and people in crisis, review and assess police response to suicide calls for the past five years and to expand its mobile crisis response teams and crisis outreach teams.

KGW’s review of current Salem Police Department policies and protocols, training instructions and internal memos obtained through public records requests indicates the agency fulfilled all but one of the requirements outlined in the settlement.

Four years after signing the agreement, Salem police still has not conducted a review of its response to suicide calls over the past five years and not presented a report of its finding to the Salem City Council, as required by the settlement.

“This wasn’t supposed to be an option for the city of Salem to do this,” said Hammer. “They signed on the dotted line that they were going to do this.”

Sure seems like the Salem Police Department has some explaining to do.

How is it that more than eight years after an armed suicidal man was killed by police, another armed suicidal man is killed in a similar fashion?

Doesn't the Salem Police Department learn from its mistakes? Apparently not. Here's how the KGW story starts out and ends.

Maria Hammer turns away when there’s graphic video of a police shooting on the news. She can’t watch. It’s too traumatic. A reminder of her brother’s death.

Chase Hammer, 27, of Salem was shot and killed by police on October 21, 2012, after officers responded to a mental health call.

"That was the start of our nightmare. And my life will never be the same,” said Hammer.

The Salem woman believes mental health should be part of the larger nationwide conversation about police reform.

“Do we defund? Do we dismantle?” asked Hammer, who believes her brother’s death could have been prevented if officers were better equipped to deal with crisis intervention.

“I’ll tell you, if there was funding for a mental health professional to be at that scene, we would have had a completely different result,” said Hammer.

A study published last year in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law found of the nearly 1,000 people shot by police officers in 2018, a quarter of those fatalities involved people with mental illness.

...Some mental health experts warn that sending traditional, uniformed police officers to calls involving severe suicidal thoughts or a deep mental crisis is not always the best solution. An armed officer could escalate the situation, sometimes with tragic results.

Hammer believes the current debate over police reform should include how mental health emergencies are handled and what training and resources are available to first responders.

“Police agencies as a whole have to self-reflect,” said Hammer. “What can we do better next time?”

Answer: a whole lot. Because the Salem Police Department just killed another suicidal person.

I agree with an Ayn Rand objectivist on some things

Exciting day! (But since there isn't much excitement in my life, I get excited about small things.)

This afternoon I had a pleasant talk with somebody I'd never met before. Doesn't matter where or how. I'll focus on the what of our conversation.

After some introductory chit-chat, this guy said "I'm an objectivist." 

"Tell me about it," I said, having a vague memory that this had something to do with the philosophy of Ayn Rand, but not being sure.

Perhaps because I'd mentioned working in health planning back in the 1970s and 80s, he told me that objectivists aren't big on government intervention in people's lives. 

Sounds like libertarianism, I replied.

He sort of agreed, adding that objectivists are disliked by both Republicans and Democrats, which fits with how the Libertarian Party is viewed by the major political parties.

"Every election I get excited about how well Libertarians are going to do," he said. "Then they end up getting one or two percent."

I told him that our two-party system makes it tough for third parties to get a foothold. A parliamentary system, as in the United Kingdom and Germany, allows for minor parties to win some seats, then negotiate power-sharing deals with larger parties. 

At about this point in our conversation I said, "Wasn't Ayn Rand an objectivist?" Yes, he told me, she was.

I've never read Ayn Rand. I don't have a positive view of her philosophy. But rather surprisingly, this guy and I found quite a bit of common ground.

For example, he favors looking upon other people as the individuals that they are, rather than as members of a cultural group. I said that Bill Maher tends to agree with him, often telling Black guests on his show, "Why does everything have to be about race? Can't we just talk as human beings?"

Regarding race, I said that I'd just finished reading a book called "Unique." It's about genetics, and the other factors (such as experience) that make us who we are.

The final chapter echoed what this objectivist said: "There are bigger differences between individuals in a racial group than between racial groups."

In fact, I told him, the book says that the whole concept of race is problematic. I said that the author noted that DNA tests, such as through AncestryDNA, which I've used, have a time horizon of 300-400 years or so.

This allows results to say things like, in my case, your heritage is 41% Baltic States and 27% Germanic Europe. But over a longer time horizon, I started to say... "We were all African" -- the guy interjected, finishing my thought.

Exactly, I said. Two hundred thousand years ago every human was African. Race isn't really anything objective, but a cultural viewpoint. 

We also agreed on the sorry state of political divisiveness in the United States.

There's so much more that unites us, I told him. If someone has a serious health problem, or suffers an accident, we feel for them as a fellow human being, their political affiliation being irrelevant. 

I added that though I'm a progressive, I know that most of those who voted for Trump are decent people, not fascists or authoritarians. However, I've heard that these days many people won't go on a date with someone who doesn't share their political outlook, which is unfortunate.

Showing my age, I told him that in my high school days in the 1960s, segregation still was common in the southern states. So our country has come a long way on that front.

Near the end of our conversation, he said that capitalism is the best way to run an economy. I basically agreed, observing that even China and Russia are largely capitalist, albeit with a big dose of oligarchy, especially in Russia. 

I didn't have a chance to talk with him about the more philosophical side of objectivism and Ayn Rand's worldview. 

I've always thought that little about it would appeal to me. However, when I perused the Wikipedia article on objectivism, the metaphysical side of this philosophy seemed congruent with my outlook.

Namely, "existence exists" is a foundational truism; reality exists independent of consciousness; we have direct contact with reality through sense perception. I'd disagree, though, that objective knowledge is possible.

I don't think a view from nowhere is feasible. Humans see reality differently than a cat or dog does. Or, as a space alien would. Yet these beings have a valid knowledge of reality, though that knowledge differs widely.

We all look upon the world through an individual consciousness. Also, a species-specific consciousness. So the very idea of objectivism strikes me as problematic. 

I believe reality exists whether or not a consciousness is aware of it. But it's impossible to say what that reality consists of absent conscious awareness. Thus subjectivism seems more valid to me than objectivism.

That said, I can understand why this guy, and many others, are attracted to Ayn Rand and objectivism. 

And given how crazy the Republican Party has become, it was refreshing to talk with a thoughtful, reasonable, well-spoken person whose libertarian leanings have a decent philosophical grounding -- something Trump and Trumpian members of the GOP lack.