Salem Political Snark

Deeply irritating: I'm wearing a mask at the gym

Thanks for nothing, unvaccinated people in Salem and the rest of Marion County. Because of you, I've starting wearing a mask when I exercise at Courthouse Club Fitness.

This selfie I took in the circuit weight training room today isn't very flattering. But the gloomy old man look did mirror my mood, since I much prefer not wearing a mask while using the Stairmaster or lifting weights.

I wasn't alone. Several other older people were wearing masks. First time I've seen this since rejoining the club after it appeared that Covid was in a marked decline in our area.

But because so many Marion County residents are refusing to get vaccinated, those of us with the smarts to get the shot are forced to pay a mask-on price for their foolishness. 

It's now known that the Delta variant is so potent, fully vaccinated people can spread the variant just as easily as unvaccinated people could spread the original Covid virus.

Plus, breakthrough cases among the vaccinated are becoming more common. A Salem Reporter story says: 

From July 18 to 24, Marion County recorded 238 people newly infected with Covid, Rothenberger said. Of those, 51 were “breakthrough” cases where someone fully vaccinated tested positive for the virus, about 21% of the total. Breakthrough cases were about 16% of all Marion County cases the previous week, Rothenberger said.

Wyatt said the county has recorded 340 breakthrough cases total since vaccines began rolling out. Of all breakthrough cases, 29 people have been hospitalized and two have died.

Adults 70 and older remain the group most likely to be hospitalized, Wyatt said, and the rare serious breakthrough cases have mostly been among older people. But she said the share of adults 60 and under hospitalized with Covid has been increasing recently.

Rad said in the hospital, people not vaccinated against Covid become much more seriously ill.

“The breakthrough cases that we have are not as severe and are very much the exception to the rule,” Rad said.

OK, but I'd rather not be an exception to the rule.

Sure, 29 hospitalizations and two deaths among vaccinated people in Marion County isn't a lot. However, when I read that the Delta variant can cause flu-like symptoms for several weeks  in someone vaccinated, that's reason enough for me to wear a mask while in an indoor public place.

Recently the CDC published a map showing where masks should be worn indoors because a county has substantial or high Covid spread. Marion County is a "substantial" county. 

What makes this so deeply irritating is how unnecessary it all is. Covid vaccines are free, safe, highly effective, and easily available. 

Yet the Salem Reporter story says:

About 179,000 Marion County residents - just over half the county’s population - have been vaccinated against Covid, according to Oregon Health Authority data. In Polk County, 55% of the population has been vaccinated, about 46,000 people. Children under 12 still cannot be vaccinated against Covid.

Those numbers put the Salem area below Portland metro counties, which have vaccination rates ranging from 58% to nearly 65%, but well above vaccination rates of 30% to 40% in many eastern Oregon counties.

What a non-surprise.

The more Democrats in a county, the higher the vaccination rate. Marion County is a swing county, basically, so our vaccination rate is in-between the more liberal Portland metro counties and the more conservative eastern Oregon counties.

Police officers undo GOP lies about January 6 insurrection

Deeply moving. Inspiring. Gripping. 

Those words don't begin to describe the testimony four police officers gave today about the Capitol insurrection by Trump supporters who believed the Big Lie that Joe Biden didn't win the presidential election.

Their honesty and bravery put into stark contrast the lies and cowardice almost all Congressional Republicans have been displaying since they decided it was more important to kiss the ass of Donald Trump than stand up for our democracy, which rests on the foundation of a peaceful transfer of power after free and fair elections.

But it isn't just Republicans in Washington D.C. who are going along with Trump's "Stop the Steal" madness.

The Oregon Republican Party has said that the insurrection was a fake "false flag" operation meant to discredit Trump -- the exact opposite of the truth, since Trump was the prime instigator of the violent right-wing terrorists.

Keep this in mind when Republicans seek your vote in local, state, or national elections. Whether they're running for the Salem City Council or President of the United States, every Republican needs to be asked if they believe Biden won a free and fair election.

If a GOP candidate says "no," or equivocates, don't let them off the hook. Pressure them to provide solid evidence that Trump won. Naturally they won't be able to do this, but liars need to be called out on their lies.

Over on my Church of the Churchless blog, recently I've been writing about a great book by Jonathan Rauch, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth.

One of the strange things about that blog is that although I'm now an avowed atheist after embracing an Eastern guru-centered spiritual path for 35 years, many of the people who comment on my blog posts are strong religious believers.

They dislike the notion of objective truth, preferring a wishy-washy subjectivism where if you have faith that something is true, that's good enough. I find this attitude deeply irritating. It allows all kinds of dangerous falsehoods to take root in human minds, such as Trump won the election and Covid vaccines don't work. 

Here's what I wrote this morning for my churchless blog. I found the honest testimony of the four police officers so inspiring, I just had to blast the relativism of commenters on my blog who don't believe in objective truth.

As I write this I'm listening to televised testimony of four police officers who are appearing at the first meeting of the Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection at the nation's capitol.

Watch it, Church of the Churchless commenters who think truth is relative, that what experts and professionals say can't be trusted, that everyone is free to create their own reality, that this physical realm is an illusion, that objectivity isn't possible, and other blather spewed from your religious sensibilities.

Watch it, because the truth is being spoken by four brave men who put their lives on the line. One truthful sentence from them is worth more than a thousand bullshit comments about the relativity of truth.

Truth isn't relative. Truth is truth. It is the most important thing in life, because without truth we're living a lie. Me, I choose not to do that. Those four police officers also have chosen not to do that. 

Take some time to watch this testimony. I'm sure it will be available on You Tube.

Those commenters who consider that truth is something to play word games with, that it doesn't matter if people embrace falsehoods -- watch the four police officers talk about how a dangerous mob of thousands of Trump supporters invaded the capitol because they believed a lie, that the election was stolen from Trump.

Lies matter. Falsehoods matter.

They lead to assaults on law enforcement officers who are still recovering from their many injuries. So think about this, commenters on this blog, next time you want to defend a "everyone creates their own reality" bullshit philosophy. That's an insult to the truth-telling police officers.

None of you would have had the courage to defend the capitol. You don't even have the courage to defend the truth, which requires no physical bravery, just moral strength. So learn from the four police officers. They have a lot to teach you.

Awakening Ministries is The Church at Planned Parenthood

In case you're wondering who The Church at Planned Parenthood really is, wonder no more.

This supposed "church" consists of moralistic busybodies who staged a protest on July 13 at the Planned Parenthood office in Salem, which resulted in a fight between Proud Boys and counterprotestors.

Because, you know, Jesus-loving churches like to have their security provided by a hate group that was part of the insurrection at the nation's capitol on January 6.

Here's a screenshot of where The Church at Planned Parenthood does its thing when it isn't harassing women at Planned Parenthood trying to use their services for cancer screening, birth control, and such.

(Yes, including abortions, which are 100% legal here in Oregon.)

And here's a screenshot of Salem's Awakening Ministries.


Proving that a career as an intelligence analyst awaits me if I wasn't already so damn old, my careful, minute, pixel-by-pixel comparisons of the two screenshots leads me to conclude that The Church at Planned Parenthood and Awakening Ministries are one and the same.

Ergo, a word I like to use when I want to appear even more intelligent than I normally am, we can also conclude that Awakenng Ministries either has ties with the Proud Boys or at the least, welcomed them to their Planned Parenthood protest.

Oh, I'm sorry. I used the word protest for a gathering where, I've heard, three Proud Boys were indicted for what they did at the Planned Parenthood office. 

The Church at Planned Parenthood is a franchise operation of sorts, with churches using that name for their local attempts to hassle clients and staff of Planned Parenthood offices. The main Church at Planned Parenthood web site makes clear what they're all about.

The Church at Planned Parenthood is NOT a protest. It’s a worship service at the gates of Hell. The Church at Planned Parenthood is a gathering of Christians for the worship of God and the corporate prayer for repentance for this nation, repentance for the apathetic church and repentance of our blood guiltiness in this abortion holocaust.

"Abortion holocaust"? I guess the Church at Planned Parenthood needs some educating about the real holocaust, since there's no comparison between women getting safe and legal abortions, and Hitler killing six million Jews. 

The web site also says The Worship is Non-Confrontational Spiritual Warfare. Apparently the Proud Boys weren't told about the non-confrontational part, just the warfare part, since two of them were arrested for assault and disorderly conduct at the Awakening Ministries/Church of Planned Parenthood "worship service."

(The third Proud Boy reportedly was charged with Robbery in the Second Degree, Felon in Possession of a Firearm, and Theft in the First Degree.)

By the way, Awakening Ministries is a sponsor of Salem Awakening, which has been using the original amphitheater at Riverfront Park without a permit for its summer gatherings. 

A citation finally has been issued by the City of Salem after citizen activist Jim Scheppke kept complaining about the permit-less worship services. Sure, Jesus didn't need a permit for his preaching, but he wasn't doing his thing in a public park, so far as I know.

I've enjoyed comments people have been leaving on the Awakening Ministries web site about their repeated permit infractions. 

 

Why I went back to wearing a mask today

Well, it was nice to be maskless for a couple of weeks. I enjoyed the feeling of normalcy when I went into stores or coffee shops.

But today I looked like this while shopping at Trader Joe's, Fred Meyer, and LifeSource. I was carrying my mask when I walked into Trader Joe's, my first stop. 

For a few seconds I was uncertain whether to mask up.

Then I put my mask on, because that felt like the right thing to do. I had plenty of company. Around a third of Trader Joe's customers were wearing masks, young, old, and in-between, along with all of the employees.

This is what changed my mind about going maskless.

Nationally, Covid cases are rising rapidly, tripling in the past few weeks.

The Delta variant has become the most common strain in the United States. It's much nastier than original Covid, which was bad enough.

Yes, I'm fully vaccinated. However, I've seen reports that even if vaccinated people contact the Delta Covid variant and have no symptoms, they can still suffer from "long haul" Covid with long-lasting problems like brain fog. 

At the age of 72 I don't want my mind to become any foggier than it already is.

So it seemed like a no-brainer, so to speak, to wear a mask while in indoor public spaces, since the mild inconvenience of doing this is well worth it if my chance of contacting the Delta variant is reduced.

I ended up in Rob Melton's (a.k.a. Rob Drinkenstein) checkout line at Trader Joe's.

When he asked me how my day was going, I said that I was wearing a mask in solidarity with store employees. And also, because I didn't want to get the Delta variant and have my brain fogged up.

What's irritating is how the pandemic is getting a new lease on its viral life because so many people are making the really bad decision to not get vaccinated. I realize that we're not supposed to shame them, but...

Jesus Fucking Christ, how stupid can you be if you buy into the anti-vaccine conspiracy theories on Fox News and refuse to get a totally free shot that not only could save you from being hospitalized or dying, but helps protect other people also?

(Answer: really damn stupid. If that irks unvaccinated folks, too bad. The truth is more important than your feelings.)

Today the Oregon Health Authority reported a marked increase in statewide Covid cases.

The tall line on the right side of the chart is the previous day's tally of 595 cases. So visualize the next line being almost 200 cases taller.

On July 10 the Delta variant only accounted for a small percentage of Oregon Covid cases. It'll be interesting to see if the next update shows an increase in the Delta variant.

Yes, we're fortunate that Oregon is a blue state with a high vaccination rate in comparison to the vaccine-resistant red states where people are buying into the conservative lie that freedom means never having to be vaccinated.

OK, if you believe that, keep in mind that being dead or in the hospital constrains your freedom vastly more. 

Nationally 609,000 people have died from COVID-19, an astounding number. Here we are, on the brink of achieving herd immunity through a mix of the 34 million Covid cases in the United States and 49% of the population being fully vaccinated. 

Yet way too many people are refusing to be vaccinated.

Dying from Covid at any time is horrible. Being one of the last people to die before herd immunity is reached is not only horrible, it is totally unnecessary -- because the vaccines are safe and effective, no matter what Tucker Carlson says.

Covid isn't over in Marion County. Get vaccinated!

This is a bad time to get complacent about COVID-19, unvaccinated people in Salem and the rest of Marion County. The Delta variant is much more transmissible. Covid cases are rising markedly nationally. Increases in deaths likely will follow.

It's beyond crazy that so many people are refusing to get vaccinated. New cases and deaths are almost entirely among the unvaccinated. Since vaccines are readily available, virtually all hospitalizations and deaths are preventable. 

Why would anyone choose to risk serious illness or death when a vaccine is free, safe, and highly effective? Often the answer is misinformation and right-wing politics. 

Today President Biden said that lies about vaccines on social media like Facebook are killing people. Harsh words, but he's right. If you're a Republican and haven't been vaccinated, keep in mind that the vaccines were developed during Trump's presidency.

So tell yourself you're going to get the Trump vaccine if calling it that makes you feel better. 

Maybe you think that because Oregon has had one of the lowest infection rates in the country (only Hawaii and Vermont beat us among the 50 states when it comes to cases per 100,000 population), there's not much to worry about here in Marion County.

Well, for sure there's less to worry about than in a hot spot state like Missouri. But Marion County isn't doing as well as Oregon as a whole.

Almost certainly one reason is that while Governor Brown, a Democrat, has done a great job managing Oregon's response to the pandemic, the three Republican county commissioners in Marion County have largely been asleep at the wheel when it comes to encouraging mask wearing, social distancing, and getting vaccinated.

Marion County has the seventh highest all-time Covid infection rate among Oregon's 36 counties. The only counties doing worse than us are conservative eastern Oregon counties.

We're doing better when it comes to cases in the past two weeks. However, Marion County has had a 35% increase in the 14-day change, while other counties with a large population are kicking our Covid ass: Multnomah -25%; Washington +23%; Clackamas +24%; Lane -30%.

When it comes to all ages vaccination rates, Marion County at 48% is below the Oregon rate of 55%. And we suck when it comes to a comparison with the vaccination rate in other large population counties: Multnomah 64%, Washington 61%, Clackamas 55%, Lane 55%.

While grocery shopping this week, I noticed more people wearing masks in stores compared to the previous week. Probably this is due to a recognition that because of the Delta variant and rising cases, it doesn't make sense to let down our guard.

Here's how the New York Times describes the current situation in Marion County. Again, get vaccinated if you aren't already.

"Slow walking" aptly describes what Salem city officials do

Let's be clear about the title of this blog post.

I have no knowledge of how rapidly City of Salem officials such as City Manager Powers, Public Works Director Fernandez, and Police Chief Trevor Womack walk from place to place.

But I do have considerable experience with city officials engaging in a different sort of slow-walking, defined as:

For example, on May 17 I filed a public records request with the City of Salem, which, thankfully, gave me a fee waiver for the request:

All emails, text messages, documents, and other communications between Peter Fernandez, Steve Powers, and Trevor Womack that pertain in any way to the “MayDay 2A Rally” in Riverfront Park on May 1, 2021. 

After almost eight weeks, I've gotten some of the records. I was told that part of the delay was caused by staff waiting to see if my fee waiver request was going to be approved.

But an initial response to a public records request is supposed to take just five business days, and the records should be provided in another ten business days. I'm on day 39 and still waiting. 

Is this deliberate slow-walking, or just a creaky bureaucracy? Hard to say. Maybe a bit of both.

The Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger used this term in a recent post, which caught my eye. The post is about a proposal by a city councilor.

Back in April Councilor Stapleton asked for a report on opening parts of Union and Winter Streets to those who might wish to walk, bike, or otherwise roll to the Saturday Market.

After some delay, the report will be presented Council on Monday the 12th.

City Staff are presenting two basic options, a "soft" and "hard" redirect to drivers and their cars.

Option #1 is a Soft Closure, in which signage and small barricades are used to discourage through-vehicle traffic on Union Street NE and Winter Street NE. Option #2 is a Hard Closure that employs large barricades and signs to prevent vehicles from entering closed street segments.

But did it have to take three months to develop this? The detail here is not something that should have taken three months. It's not rocket science!

...All in all, the plan does not look like it received great care and attention. It looks a little like a perfunctory pass at a plan, put together at the last minute.

After Councilor Stapleton's April motion, the City could have instead moved quickly to implement a "soft" option in a pop-up mode to trial it for a couple of weeks or a month even. This could have been done in May and June.

...By now, by July, the City could have had an empirically tested plan that used the least intervention necessary to achieve the desired result.

Instead, City Staff are presenting two options to Council asking them to know which one is best, with potentially not enough time to work out the kinks and to let Salemites figure out new patterns of commuting to the market and playing in the street.

It's not too late to try out the concept, but it does not now seem like it will be positioned for maximum success. It's hard not to think City Staff are slow-walking the project.

My impression is that the Salem Climate Action Plan championed by the progressive City Council majority also is getting the slow-walk treatment.

Despite the urgency of slowing global warming before it makes much of our planet barely habitable for humans (Salem's record-breaking 117 degree temperature not long ago sure was unbearable), the proposals being brought forward by City of Salem staff are mostly underwhelming. 

Another Salem Breakfast on Bikes post regarding the Climate Action Plan says:

As yet without publishing a release, the City just put up a new sticky note exercise, soliciting comment on a selection of 35 climate actions, presumably ones that survived the previous sticky note comment project, or ones that were consolidated from overlapping candidates.

A lot of the concepts are still very ornamental, signalling lofty intent more than actually likely to reduce meaningful carbon pollution. (Too much of the vague "support," especially, like "Support native biodiversity," for example.) It just seems like we ought to have a better idea of actually effective actions and goals at this point, and could relegate feel-good, but ineffective, gestures to the dust bin or some secondary place. But for the moment they all have equal weight.

...The Climate Action Plan project remains very diffuse and unfocused, and it is hard not to conclude that the effort is in important ways unserious and the goal to have an ornamental and largely ineffective plan that dodges the prospect of real change and real emissions reductions.

Sure sounds like slow-walking to me.

63% of Republicans believe Biden won because of voter fraud

Today is the six month anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the nation's capitol where Trump supporters tried to overturn Biden's free and fair election as president of the United States.

Chris Hayes marked the occasion on his MSNBC show by discussing with guests the upcoming special House committee that will investigate the insurrection, and the continuing Republican inability to recognize a simple truth.

Biden won the election fair and square. 

No reasonable person doubts this. The Trump campaign filed about sixty lawsuits challenging the counting of votes in a number of swing states. They lost all but one, and that one had no bearing on the outcome in Pennsylvania.

Recounts showed no problems. The handful of voter fraud cases that came to light all involved attempts to illegally cast a ballot for Trump. Independent fact checkers agreed that Biden won legitimately.

Yet Hayes shared the results of a June 2021 Monmouth University poll on his show.

Big Lie, for sure. I'd go further and call it the Gigantic Lie. Or the Gigantic Dangerous Lie.

Hayes viewed the 63% of Republicans wrongly believing Biden won because of voter fraud as more disturbing than the fact that 32% of Americans believe this lie.

A third of Americans is a distinct minority. Republicans aren't going to win elections with that level of support.

But since almost two-thirds of Republicans believe the Gigantic Dangerous Lie, and the GOP controls many states, there's a lot of pressure on Republican elected officials to go along with Trump's bogus claim of voter fraud, even though many or most of them must know this is a crock of shit. 

So in the 2022 midterm election and the 2024 presidential election, there's a high likelihood of Republicans not only suppressing votes, which would be bad enough, but going much farther and taking steps to overturn the results of Democratic victories.

That would move the United States much closer to autocracy. We'd become a failed democracy if Republican-controlled states chose a different slate of electors after the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate was declared the winner in those states.

This prospect is beyond scary. It's terrifying.

As was noted on Chris Hayes' show today, overturning an election goes far beyond the usual messing around with voter suppression through gerrymandering, purging voter registrations, limiting voting options, and such.

The United States would be entering full-on authoritarianism if Republicans overturned a Democratic win in the 2024 presidential election because their base wrongly believed that Biden won in 2020 because of voter fraud.

It's crazy that the Monmouth University discussion of the poll results says that this belief among Republicans hasn't changed since the November 2020 election. In other words, they've continued to believe Trump's lie even after courts and election officials confirmed Biden's win in the months after the election.

One-third (32%) of Americans continue to believe that Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was due to voter fraud – a number that has not budged since the November election. At first glance in the crosstabs, it looks like the number of “Republicans” who believe this has been trending down while the number of independents who agree has ticked up.

However, this appears to be a product of a shift in how Republicans identify themselves, with some moving their self-affiliation from being partisan to being an “independent” who leans partisan.

When all Republican identifiers and leaners are combined, the number who believe Biden won only because of voter fraud has been fairly stable (63% now, 64% in March, 69% in January, and 66% in November). Furthermore, 14% of the American public say they will never accept Biden as president, including 3 in 10 (29%) Republicans and Republican leaners.

“The continuing efforts to question the validity of last year’s election is deepening the partisan divide in ways that could have long-term consequences for our Democracy, even if most Americans don’t quite see it that way yet,” said Murray.

Congressional Democrats need to get off their butts (I'm talking you, Senators Manchin and Sinema) and pass strong voting rights legislation ASAP. Saving our democracy is way more important than preserving the filibuster.

Here's a video of today's All In With Chris Hayes show that starts with the segment where Hayes presents the poll results.

Salem's City Manager ignores calls for a fireworks ban

Recently city councilor Tom Andersen, along with several other councilors, called on City Manager Steve Powers to issue an emergency order banning the use of fireworks in Salem this Fourth of July.

Yesterday Andersen shared a Facebook post where he said, "Other Councilors and I have asked that fireworks be banned in Salem over this weekend. Here is City Manager's response to the general public."

I found the response by City Manager Steve Powers so clueless and irritating, I just had to comment on what Powers said in blazing red below. The message from Powers is in regular type. 

What I said is pretty damn blunt and caustic. One reason is that for 31 years my wife and I have lived on ten wooded acres in rural south Salem. Every year we and our neighbors live in fear that some careless person will set off fireworks, legal or illegal, that start a wildfire. 

We've tried to make our house wildfire safe, but there's only so much that can be done. Everybody out here is anxious about this Fourth of July, given the drought and extreme recent heat. So having Powers give his "fireworks are fine" response below was really disturbing. 

Thank you for contacting the City and sharing your concerns regarding fire danger. Fire Chief Niblock is closely monitoring the weather and fire conditions in Salem. If either forecasted or actual conditions in Salem justify an emergency order, one will be issued.

 

City Manager Powers and Fire Chief Niblock are clueless about other reasons for a fireworks ban besides the current weather. Our part of Marion County is in a Severe Drought condition after several years of below average rainfall. We just had record-breaking high temperatures, further drying out vegetation markedly. So actual conditions in Salem do justify an emergency order banning fireworks.

 

Currently, Salem has typical-for-July heat and high humidity. The fire conditions in Salem are not extreme. Forecasted temperatures are in the 80s to 90s through July 4.

 

Not true. Powers should invest in a smartphone weather app to prevent him making uninformed statements. AccuWeather says July 3 is forecasted to have a high of 89; normal is 79. July 4 is forecasted to have a high of 88; normal is 79. July 5 is forecasted to have a high of 88; normal is 80. So around July 4 Salem will have temperatures 8 to 10 degrees above normal. That isn't typical-for-July heat no matter the City Manager's false assertion that it is.

 

Comparisons to other cities and counties should consider the weather and fire-risk levels in those areas.

 

OK. These are the Oregon cities and counties that have banned fireworks: Portland (and bans sales), Multnomah County (and bans sales), Milwaukie (and bans sales), Tigard, Tualatin, Gresham, West Linn, Hood River, The Dalles, Newberg, unincorporated Clackamas County, Bend. Most of these places, like Salem, are in northwest Oregon. They have almost exactly the same weather and fire risk level.

 

Newberg is forecasted to have a high of 84 on July 4; 80 is normal. Tualatin is forecasted to have a high of 86 on July 4; normal is 79. The July 4 forecast for both cities is lower than the Salem forecast and their expected temperature isn't as much above normal as Salem's is. Yet those cities are banning fireworks while Salem isn't. 

 

Bend, for example, is in an extreme heat warning. Bend’s city/forest fringe is much different than Salem’s geography of agricultural land as a buffer. The two-county agricultural burn ban is in place to control woody debris slash burning.

 

Powers speaks just like a bureaucrat who values spin over truth. He ignore all the cities and counties in northwest Oregon that are banning fireworks and singles out a central Oregon city. By the way, Mr. City Manager, the forecasted high temperature for Bend on July 4 is 93, just five degrees above Salem's 88.

 

Police and Fire will both have full staffing over the weekend, with additional resources to respond as necessary.

 

Wonderful to know. Too bad they won't be responding to reports of illegal fireworks, because you have refused to ban these notorious fire-starters.

 

City Council has delegated considerable authority to the City Manager for emergency situations.

 

The City Council needs to rethink this, since our current City Manager is incompetent to decide when an emergency arises. Like, when fireworks are being sold all over Salem in a severe  drought condition exacerbated by recent record high temperatures that topped out at 117 degrees just a few days ago.

 

In careful consultation with the Fire Chief on current and forecasted conditions, consideration of the practical impacts of a ban, and respect for the emergency power City Council has entrusted to me, an emergency order has not been issued.

 

Sad, but true. You shouldn't be so proud of such a bad decision.

 

Emergency orders should be limited to actual emergencies that require access to state or federal resources, such as with the ice storm, or to expedite regulatory actions in response to a crisis, such as the emergency order to assist our unhoused residents that allowed the siting of the Safe Sleep shelter. No similar circumstances of justifications exist currently for fireworks.

 

A lot of people in Salem don't agree with you. You should read the many caustic comments on Facebook about your "let the fireworks burn" decision, written by people who know who dangerously dry their neighborhoods are, and how careless many fireworks users are.

 

An emergency order banning fireworks would have no practical impact on this Fourth of July. The fireworks that are most likely to cause fires are already illegal in Oregon. An emergency order would not mobilize or provide access to additional resources.

 

Wow. So wrong. City Manager Powers, you wrongly think that you're many times smarter than city officials in the other Oregon cities who have decided to ban the use of fireworks this year, with some locales banning the sale of fireworks also. Somehow they consider that their actions will have a practical impact -- probably because they're more competent at administration and enforcement than you are.

 

An emergency order banning the use of fireworks in Salem would be widely publicized. It'd grab peoples' attention, causing most to think twice about setting off fireworks in such dangerous conditions. Sure, some people would ignore the ban, just as some people ignored Governor Brown's order to wear masks during the pandemic. But most people did wear masks. Governor Brown had the guts to be a leader. By contrast, you, City Manager Powers, are a gutless follower of what is easy to do, not what is right to do.

 

We continue to monitor weather conditions and will inform you if an emergency order is issued.

 

I'm confident Council Andersen won't be holding his breath for the emergency order that almost certainly won't be issued, but should have been.