Salem Political Snark

Mayor candidate Chane Griggs was a Third Bridge backer

A few days ago the Salem Reporter had a story about Chane Griggs, the second candidate to enter the May 2022 race to be Salem's mayor, since Chuck Bennett, the current mayor, isn't seeking re-election.

Reading the story, I got an impression that Griggs is a classic Salem Chamber of Commerce candidate. After all, the Chamber doesn't want to have a progressive take over as mayor, given that Bennett is quite conservative, and progressives already have a 6-3 majority on the City Council. Excerpt:

A prominent community leader is throwing her name in the race for Salem's soon-to-be vacant mayoral seat.

Chane Griggs, president of the Rotary Club of Salem and the city’s planning commission, told Salem Reporter Tuesday that she intends to run for mayor.

Griggs sits on the city’s planning commission and is retired from the Oregon Community Foundation as a regional director and philanthropic advisor. She’s lived in the Salem area since 1977. 

“I've always had a passion for government and how it works, whether it be in my volunteer capacity or my professional capacity,” she said. “I knew I would, at some point, feel like I needed to step up and run for either city council or for the mayor.”

Griggs was quoted in the story as saying all the predictable things. Such as:

“I do feel like I have the ability to bring people together and kind of cut through the chase and get to the crux and get to a solution that's kind of in the middle of the road,” she said.

Ooh, nice. Middle of the road. A seeming contrast with the other announced candidate, union organizer Hollie Oakes-Miller, who doesn't shy away from having "socialist" attached to her political leaning.

When I Googled "Chane Griggs Salem Oregon" I was met with a decided lack of online presence for someone billed as a prominent community leader. The only non-newspaper photo I could find of Griggs was the one above, a small Rotary image.

But that's what would be expected if the Chamber of Commerce types in Salem, who I'm confident have been plotting how to get the City Council back under conservative control, decided to back a Mayor candidate with outwardly mainstream credentials and little obvious political baggage.

I wondered, though, about what Griggs was getting at when the Salem Reporter story said: "Two other city issues Griggs said are on her radar are congestion with people commuting from other areas of Marion and Polk counties, and livability of downtown Salem."

Ah, congestion.

That's a word much beloved by backers of a Third Bridge or Salem River Crossing. It fell by the wayside after progressives gained a majority on the City Council and were able to kill what I liked to call the Billon Dollar Boondoggle.

The official Third Bridge death came in October 2019.

Thanks to my Googling, I learned that Chane Griggs was the secretary for Salem Bridge Solutions, a group that advocated for the Billion Dollar Boondoggle -- operating out of the offices of Chuck Adams, a notorious political consultant for Republican/conservative candidates and causes.

In 2017 I wrote a blog post, "Salem Bridge Solutions group laughably lacks facts." 

The Powers That Be in Salem who love wasting taxpayer money on special interest projects have set up a new lobbying group for the Billion Dollar Boondoggle known as the Salem River Crossing, or Third Bridge.

After browsing through the Salem Bridge Solutions Facebook page and web site, it seems clear that their main rationale for wanting to foist $1.50 each-way tolls on citizens, plus increases in the local gas tax, vehicle registration fees, and property taxes, can be summed up as...

We want a new bridge! Badly. Waaaaahhhhh! We're going to cry and fuss until we get one!

By contrast, the No 3rd Bridge folks are committed to an old-fashioned mature idea: facts matter.

Their Facebook page is filled with posts that link to information demolishing the ridiculous idea that building a $430 million new bridge (billion dollars, or thereabout, with financing costs) is the most cost-effective way to solve problems with the two current vehicular bridges.

So Chane Griggs needs to come clean about where she stands on the possibility of bringing the Third Bridge project back from the dead.

Is Griggs willing to promise that, if she were to become mayor, she would never, ever, not once make an attempt to revive the Salem River Crossing project, either in its original form just north of downtown, or in some other Salem location?

If Griggs won't do this, this is persuasive evidence that she'll march to the beat of a Chamber of Commerce drummer, rather than doing what's best for most people in Salem.

Regardless of her answer to the Third Bridge question, if Chuck Adams' New Media NW company pops up as the Chane Griggs for Mayor campaign consultant, this will be a strong sign that Griggs isn't the middle of the road candidate she claimed to be in the Salem Reporter story.

Chamber of Commerce political action: "It's quiet...too quiet"

Suddenly it hit me. The political part of my brain had been freaking out over national politics, as it always does. 

Biden's approval rating sucks. Senate Democrats need to do away with the filibuster for voting rights legislation, but Sinema refuses to do this. The 2022 midterms look like a Dem disaster in the making. What's up with Kamala Harris' disappearing act, since I thought she'd run in 2024 rather than Biden.

But then it dawned on me that locally, when it comes to political activities of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, as the saying goes, It's quiet...too quiet. 

I realized that it had been quite a while since my liberal sensibility had been outraged by something the Chamber of Commerce was doing -- which in years gone by happened all the time. 

It's hard to believe that the Chamber has come to accept the current 6-3 progressive majority on the Salem City Council as something they can live with. Sure, maybe Chamber leaders have decided that they'll stay out of city council races, but as much as I'd like this to happen, I doubt that it will.

So I'm wondering whether this is just the calm before a political storm brewing as the May 2022 election for mayor and four city council seats nears. Or has something changed with the Chamber of Commerce that I'm not aware of.

Follow the money is usually a wise political adage. 

But when I headed off to the state political contribution reporting system, ORESTAR, the two Chamber of Commerce PACs I'm familiar with displayed not much of it... money.

The Chamber web site still plugs the Build Jobs PAC. It only has $5,978 though, with no cash contributions in 2021.

The Create Jobs Coalition has $394, with a $500 cash contribution in 2021.

Of course, things can change quickly. In 2020 I wrote about how the Chamber of Commerce apparently tried to hide $25,00o in PAC money. Big donors like Mountain West Investment Corporation can change the monetary political landscape with a single check.

For now, though, I'll hope that my 2017 post, "Chamber of Commerce no longer running Salem. Let's keep it that way," holds true.

When I first got heavily involved in Salem politics about four and a half years ago (after the horrendous needless killing of the U.S. Bank trees got my ire up), fellow progressive citizen activists would tell me, "The Chamber of Commerce runs this town." 

Well, this isn't true any more. And that's a very good thing. 

Salem Chamber of Commerce apparently trying to hide $25,000 in PAC money

In tonight's blog post I planned to focus on the curious case of Brad Nanke suddenly deciding that he wanted to run again to be the Ward 3 city councilor, even though back in September of last year he told the Statesman Journal that he wouldn't seek reelection in 2020. 

Salem City Councilor Brad Nanke will not seek reelection in 2020, planning to cap a nearly two-decade run representing southeast Salem after his term concludes.

Nanke, in his fifth term on the council, has more than a year left to influence policy: His current term ends Dec. 31, 2020.

"Five is enough," he told the Statesman Journal on Thursday.

But an update to a Salem Reporter story by Saphara Harrell about who has filed to run in local races shows that at the last minute, Nanke changed his mind under pressure from somebody.

Trevor Phillips, a Salem Health emergency room doctor, is running against Brad Nanke for the ward that represents south and southeast Salem. Nanke, who has been a councilor for nearly two decades, gathered enough signatures to get on the ballot on Tuesday, March 10. When reached Monday, Nanke said he was pressured to run again.

Interesting.

My strong suspicion is that the Salem Chamber of Commerce, along with the Oregon Home Builders Association and Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties, was part of the pressure. After all, Nanke works for the home builders associations, according to the Statesman Journal story.

He said he doesn't have any future political plans at the moment, but left the door open for future political involvement after he retires. Nanke works with the Oregon Home Builders Association and the Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties.

Well, Trevor Phillips, Nanke's opponent in the Ward 3 race, shouldn't be shy about pointing out to voters that for six months Nanke showed no interest in running for another city council term. Then he did, under pressure. This doesn't show much commitment to representing the people who live in Ward 3.

What it shows is commitment to whoever pressured him to run again. Which likely wasn't his wife, as the September 2019 Statesman Journal story indicated.

In an interview, he said he likes to tell his wife, Denise, the dishes have been building up in the sink for 19 years, and he needs to take care of them.

..."It'd be nice to spend some time with the family,” Nanke said Thursday. He said he'd like to see his wife more often, and his son is getting married.

It's an open secret that the Salem Chamber of Commerce and related business groups is desperate for conservatives like Nanke to take back control of the City Council, which currently has a 6-3 progressive majority on the nine member council (eight councilors plus the Mayor).

So here's what's turned out to be the headline of this blog post rather than Nanke deciding to seek reelection: the Chamber of Commerce sure seems to be trying to hide a $25,000 contribution to its Create Jobs PAC from Mountain West Investment Corporation, a major builder based in Salem.

Last month someone alerted me to the contribution, sending along a screenshot of the transaction on the ORESTAR reporting system.

This person thought it was curious that the $25,000 Mountain West Investment contribution was made to the Create Jobs PAC, since the Salem Chamber of Commerce had been promoting a different PAC, the Build Jobs PAC, on its website.

Well, when I searched ORESTAR this evening for either the Create Jobs PAC or the Build Jobs PAC, neither PAC turned up. But using my blogger instinct, I typed in "Build Jobs" without the "PAC."

What turned up was a new Chamber of Commerce PAC, the Build Jobs Coalition. Its effective date was February 25, 2020.

And where did the Create Jobs Coalition get almost all of its money? Why, from the Create Jobs PAC -- namely, the $25,000 Mountain West Investment contribution that would have been completely disguised absent the screenshot I got, because according to ORESTAR the Chamber has shut down both the Create Jobs PAC and the Build Jobs PAC.

Now, I said in the title of this blog post that the Chamber is apparently trying to hide the $25,000 from Mountain West Investment. I used that word only because I can't be sure about the motivation of the Chamber of Commerce.

Maybe it just was a coincidence that a month after the $25,000 contribution was made to the Create Jobs PAC, the Chamber siphoned that money into a new PAC, then shut down the Create Jobs PAC, thereby making it very difficult for anyone to trace the source of the $25,000.

Maybe. But I doubt it. 

My suspicion is that Brad Nanke's decision to seek reelection as the Ward 3 city councilor is linked to the $25,000 Mountain West Investment contribution. We know from the Salem Reporter story that Nanke was "pressured to run again." Some of that pressure may have included a commitment by the Chamber of Commerce to fund his campaign in a substantial way.

Currently Nanke doesn't have a election committee. At least, I wasn't able to find one on the ORESTAR system. So we'll have to wait and see if a donation is made to Nanke's reelection campaign by the Chamber's Create Jobs Coalition. If so, it will be clear that this money, in effect, came from Mountain West Investment.

Thus if this happens, Nanke, who works for two home builders associations, will have his campaign funded in large part by Salem's largest builder. Not a good look, for sure.

A view of Salem's problems from wide angle of inequality and corporatism

Watching the Salem City Council discuss homeless solutions last Tuesday night made me feel like I was looking through a magnifying glass. The problems were real. The ideas about how to help homeless people were tiny.

Now, there's nothing wrong with small steps, like allowing a women's homeless shelter to add nine beds to their current 10 bed capacity, or considering allowing the homeless to camp in industrial parts of town.

But equally valuable, if not more so, is looking at Salem's problems through a wide-angle mental lens that sees homelessness, environmental degradation, lack of affordable housing, urban sprawl, and other issues as manifestations of a systemic societal failure.

This is the goal of a book by Russ and Dave Beaton, long-time Salem residents, that I've read the first part of. Russ brought some copies to a group that we're both members of, and I eagerly forked out $10 to get one at a bargain price (The Economics of Hope sells for $17.95 on Amazon.)

I'm liking the book a lot.

Russ is a retired emeritus professor of economics at Willamette University. Dave, his brother, has worked in both state and federal government, with a special interest in the impacts of information technology on the workplace and society.

They've written an approachable book for those of us who don't know much about economics, yet want to understand why things are so screwed up locally, nationally, and internationally. 

There's a lot of moving parts to this question.

But the core thesis of The Economics of Hope is that inequality is tied tightly to climate change and other assaults on our planet's environmental well-being. And corporatism -- a mindset that elevates the values of corporations far above what is desirable -- lurks at the heart of what ails us.

Here's some passages from the book that speak to this. And it isn't just large multinational corporations that are the problem. It's also a Chamber of Commerce mentality that views money and jobs as more important than quality of life and sustainable living. (boldfacing is in original).

In summary, the reality of the [corporate] model looks very much like the medieval structure of Feudalism, except the currency of the Realm is not eternal salvation, but money -- pure and simple. The reward is not sitting at the right hand of God, but a villa in the South of France. 

A spot in Heaven for repentant souls is replaced by the lure of owning a 200-foot yacht, or perhaps, to shamelessly mix metaphors, the ability to soar with the gods in the corporate jet.

...Special attention must be afforded the phrase Corporate Sponsorship. From softball teams to local symphonies, corporate sponsorship is eagerly sought. Presumably, we cannot afford such enrichment opportunities without such philanthropic largesse.

With an admitted generous dash of cynicism, it could be added: "For sure, we can't afford them, since you have already looted from the community any economic surplus that would allow us to pay for such amenities on our own. Give it back...!"

...It will be argued in response that corporate sponsorship in local communities is normally sought from local business interests, and not from national corporations. This is certainly true, and leads to an important reminder.

It is the mindset we are talking about, and not just the presence of some transnational institution itself.

Local business people -- as well they should be in many cases -- are normally seen as community leaders and benefactors. This promotes a "chamber of commerce" mentality which assumes economic prosperity to be the primary value in a community, and from which springs all other features that the community might cherish.

Once that assumption is met, diversity of interests and choices is encouraged, since business is enthroned as the dominant institution that provides all meaning in life. Corporate "sponsorship" has done its job as a small but effective down payment toward a cultural mindset. 

Without further prompting, locals are playing their part, and the corporatist paradigm has won out.

Below I've taken what Russ and Dave Beaton have said above and related the "corporate mindset" and "corporate sponsorship" notions to some specific local issues. Obviously these are my notions, not theirs, but I think there's some common ground in how we see things.

-- The City Council is putting an employee-paid payroll tax on the May 2020 ballot, not an employer-paid tax. And the money, if the measure passes, isn't going to homelessness, parks, libraries, or such. It would be spent on public safety, the police and fire departments that already have by far the largest share of the City's general fund budget.

-- Urban Renewal funds in the millions of dollars are handed out freely to businesses and developers, even when there is no urban area that really needs renewing. But it took a lot of effort to pry loose $50,000 from the City of Salem to fund the beginning stage of a Climate Action Plan that is needed for the small little goal of preserving the earth for human habitation.

-- Businesses and developers in Salem wrongly cut down or wreck street trees that belong to everybody without consequences, or at least no major consequences, while ordinary citizens are held to stricter standards. There are lots of examples of this that I've written about over the years. Here's a very recent example and one from 2013.

-- Likewise, massive road projects are funded as a matter of course, since they are in tune with a chamber of commerce mentality. Meanwhile, those who advocate for making Salem a city where people can walk and bike safely and easily have to struggle to get a single Neighborhood Greenway built, whose cost is a fraction of a single road-widening.

-- When businesses complained about the homeless disrupting downtown commerce, City officials jumped into action to push a ban on homeless camping throughout Salem. However, when local experts on homelessness pointed out the obvious -- that the ban did nothing to reduce the number of homeless people, just change where they congregate -- the City Council appeared confused and unsure what to do. Once again, making money is being taken more seriously than acting humanely.

I'll give the Beatons the last word. Here's another passage from their chapter "What is Corporatism?"

Understand, in no way are we suggesting that corporatism represents some insidious, regimented, sinister force; a pernicious organization with chapters, board members, a secret handshake, and that meets monthly in some five-star hotel on the outskirts of Houston or Dubai.

What we are saying is that powerful corporations, working through their network of relationships to other institutions -- especially government and the media -- have effectively found ways to consolidate, expand, and solidify their power and influence over many important aspects of American life.

The wealthy are definitely in control. It is vital to understand the many permeating effects of this expansion of power if ways are to be found to devise a comfortable and viable local alternative.

A final all-important reminder: The tangible effects, pro and con, of corporations on our lives have been hashed and rehashed, and this will no doubt continue. That is not the main point. The main point is that it has tended to give you, the average American, a mindset compatible with (and inadvertently supportive of) Global Corporatism -- manifested even in your local actions.

Leading you through introspection to examine that mindset or world view is our main purpose in this chapter. 

This is a necessary first step on the part of regular thinking citizens if we are to undertake effective local actions to make our communities more safe, sustainable, prosperous, and personally satisfying. The task will be difficult, but we see it as a fundamentally optimistic endeavor: it represents the path to the best possible future we can expect.

Honor Mike Swaim by making Salem more progressive

Mike Swaim was a much-admired former mayor of Salem who died on December 17 from a stroke that occurred during heart surgery. 

Other people have praised Swaim for how he worked to improve Salem during his three mayoral terms in office from 1997 to 2002. Below I'm sharing a piece that Bill Smaldone wrote about Swaim that was posted on the Salem City Watch site. 

And both the Salem Reporter and Statesman Journal had stories about Swaim. So since I don't have anything to add about Swaim's exemplary life, I want to talk about how we can honor him in the future.

Since Mike Swaim was a proud progressive, working to make Salem more progressive than it already is strikes me as a fine way to say Thank you, Mike. We're taking your footsteps further in a direction that would please you.

Which means, in part:

(1) Protecting, and hopefully expanding, the 6-3 progressive majority on the Salem City Council.
(2) Preventing further urban sprawl that Swaim disliked so much.
(3) Reducing greenhouse gases in Salem through a strong Climate Action Plan.
(4) Expanding LGBTQ rights in Salem.
(5) Fighting against conservative efforts to prevent 1-4 above from happening.

Regarding that last point, it seems clear that the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, the Realtors Association, and other groups on the right wing of the political spectrum are going to go all out to regain control of the reins of power at City Hall, just as they did after Swaim was elected mayor and the City Council had a progressive majority.

Someone sent me a link to a May 2002 Oregonian story about how Janet Taylor, a conservative, had been elected mayor of Salem by beating Bill Isabell, who Swaim had endorsed.
Download TAYLOR_EASILY_WINS__Oregonian_The_Portland_OR___May_23_2002__pD02

Since I like people who tell it like it is, I loved this part of the story.

Swaim told a weekly Eugene publication that Salem has a Chamber of Commerce "with a lot of good people run by a bunch of Neanderthals."

OK, that comment led to demands that Swaim apologize, but I don't think he needed to.

What he meant, I'm pretty sure, was that leaders of the Salem Chamber of Commerce weren't interested in wise, forward-looking, cutting-edge policies that would move Salem forward toward increased equity, quality of life, and economic development that benefits everybody, not just a privileged few.

The same holds true today, by and large. That's why we need to remember that, as Progressive Salem likes to say, people power can beat money power. 

Which doesn't mean you shouldn't donate to progressive candidates and causes. Of course that's needed.

But so is volunteering to help elect people to the mayor's office and city council seats who are committed to following in the progressive footsteps of Mike Swaim, and doing your part in other ways to assure that Salem continues to move forward, not backward.

Here's what Bill Smaldone wrote in his Salem City Watch piece about Swaim.

With the passing of Mike Swaim on December 17 the people of Salem lost a true friend.

Many members of City Watch certainly remember well that few local political figures defended the interests of average people in Salem the way Mike did during his three terms as Mayor. For Mike every issue essentially boiled down to a few basic questions: who got to make the decisions, how were obligations and benefits shared, and how were individuals’ rights protected.

Mike was truly a democrat with a small d.

He believed it was essential to listen to people and for the government to serve all residents as fairly and equitably as possible. Listening takes time and that sometimes made for very long meetings, but Mike thought it was worth it and he was right. Mike led the fight for as much transparency as possible in city government.

He pushed for citizens’ right to vote on annexations, supported ordinances to provide as much information as possible to the public about growth and its costs, and insisted that those who profited from growth pay their fair share of its costs to the community.

For Mike, government was all about improving the quality of life for all, and he worked tenaciously to defend our parks, our library, and our neighborhood services while at the same time providing adequate resources to public safety.

Mike also knew that many in our community faced discrimination and exploitation. He emphasized the importance of the Human Rights Commission in defending the rights of all citizens. He recognized the importance of tolerance and communication in community life, and this was symbolized by his support for the Peace Plaza and for Salem’s sister city projects.

Mike was also much concerned with the environment.

Long before “climate change” became part of the daily discussion, he supported the creation of the City’s Environmental Commission, which later councils, unfortunately, lacked the foresight to continue. He also placed much emphasis on planning ahead and many projects initiated during Mike’s tenure, such as the Riverfront Park, the Convention Center, and the Pedestrian Bridge to Wallace Marine Park, are now core elements of our flourishing downtown.

The list of achievements could go on. What is perhaps more important, though, is to remember Mike as a person.

Mike and his spouse, Kellie, were a team. Not only did they raise a family together, but they also shared the work of the law practice. The decision to engage in city politics was a joint project that Kellie shared with Mike every step of the way and, just as the law practice depended on both of them, so did Mike’s stint as Mayor.

Being Mayor meant a lot of sacrifices. It is financially difficult for anyone with their own business and it demands enormous amounts of time and energy that one might otherwise spend with family and friends. Mike and Kellie dealt with it all with aplomb. They took the work in stride and were always ready for a good laugh and a beer.

Mike will be missed, but his model of civic engagement will remain.

-- Bill Smaldone

Salem Chamber of Commerce needs to be less political

The most amusing quote in a recent Salem Reporter story by Troy Brynelson came from the outgoing CEO of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, Nick Williams.

Departing CEO Nick Williams said community debates are more heated than he can recall.

“I’ve been fortunate to be in this work for a little over six years and I’ve never seen it this divided before, which is unfortunate because at the local level we should be able to disagree knowing we’re going to bump into people at the grocery store,” he said. “I think the overarching theme is the way we seem to have lost our civility.”

Gosh, community debates in Salem are heated!?

Hmmmm. I wonder if maybe, just maybe, Nick Williams should have looked in the mirror when he wonders who is to blame for a large share of the red hot rhetoric. Let's count some of the ways the Chamber of Commerce has contributed to a rise in Salem's incivility.

(1) The Chamber has been highly political in recent years, much more so than the Chambers of Commerce in other Oregon cities.
(2) The Chamber set out to take control of the Mayor's office and City Council in 1998, succeeding in kicking out progressive leadership in an electoral coup that lasted until recently.
(3) The Chamber has been a big backer of a controversial new bridge across the Willamette, disregarding plenty of evidence that this would be a Billion Dollar Boondoggle. 
(4) The Chamber habitually endorses Republicans running for public office, even though Salem is a decidedly liberal city.
(5) The Chamber does its best to buy City Council seats. 

But maybe things are changing with a new Chamber of Commerce CEO coming on board, as discussed in the Salem Reporter story, "Tom Hoffert says he will emphasize partnership as Salem chamber's new CEO." Hoffert is quoted:

Leading the chamber offered the civic involvement he said he has been looking for. He iterated in talks with Salem Reporter that businesses, employees and all else are “interlinked” in local issues.

“For me everything drives back to community partnership. The business segment is your citizenry as well, it’s not a whole different segment of the community,” he said. “They’re your neighbors, your employees or employers.”

True. I just wish it hadn't taken so long for the leader of the Chamber of Commerce to recognize this obvious fact. It seems crazy for the Chamber to have taken such strong hard-right political stances when, as noted above, Salem citizens lean liberal. 

Why would a business organization choose to antagonize more than half of the population? When did supporting business become a monopoly of Republicans/conservatives? Plenty of business owners, of both large and small enterprises, are Democrats/liberals. 

I think incoming CEO Hoffert would be wise to tone down the political heat at the Salem Chamber of Commerce and focus instead on what a chamber should do: further the interests of businesses. 

Which means, arguably, that if the Chamber is going to take a political stand (which I don't think it should), it should set out to elect Democrats, as I discussed in a 2016 blog post. 

Democratic leaders tend to be better for the economy. Today the Statesman Journal reported that Oregon unemployment hit a record low in March, 4.5%. 

State employment economist Nick Beleiciks said in a release that the jobless rate shows the Oregon labor market is "stronger than it's been in decades." Beleiciks said people are "flocking to Oregon's labor force."

Oregon has a Democratic Governor and Dem majorities in both the state Senate and House. If liberals have been good for the state economy, why does the Salem Chamber of Commerce only favor conservatives for Mayor and City Council?

Likewise, on the national level the economy does much better when a Democrat is president. 

“The U.S. economy not only grows faster, according to real GDP and other measures, during Democratic versus Republican presidencies, it also produces more jobs, lowers the unemployment rate, generates higher corporate profits and investment, and turns in higher stock market returns. Indeed, it outperforms under almost all standard macroeconomic metrics.”

So another question is, if liberals have been good for the national economy, why does the Salem Chamber of Commerce favor conservatives for Mayor and City Council?

 

If all politics is national now, what about local Salem politics?

Baby boomer that I am, I'm old enough to remember when what Yascha Mounk writes about in a New Yorker piece, "The Rise of McPolitics," was the lay of the political land in this country:

For much of the twentieth century, the real power in American politics rested not with U.S. representatives or senators but with the governors, mayors, and assemblymen who controlled local purse strings.

In many cases, men like Chafin got people elected to Congress in order to reward them for years of loyal service or to rid themselves of ambitious rivals, but national politics was of comparatively little importance. “The politicians who were crucial to the operation of the organization normally stayed home,” one scholar of the period observed.

At the federal level, the two parties resembled loose associations of disparate interests rather than ideologically cohesive movements. They had few resources and virtually no means of insuring ideological discipline among their members. Many Democrats were more conservative than many Republicans.

All of that had real advantages: Congress was, for much of the past century, a place of remarkable comity, where politicians routinely struck compromises on public spending or judicial appointments. Even as Americans found themselves deeply divided on everything from foreign policy to rock and roll, high politics was relatively free of acrimony.

But for sure, the times, they were a'changing.

Now, Mounk accurately says, almost everyone identifies as Democrat or Republican, progressive or conservative, since even independents are pretty much that in name only, since they tend to lean either leftward or rightward, not smack-dab upright in the middle.

As Daniel J. Hopkins, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, chronicles in a new book, “The Increasingly United States” (Chicago), American politics has become thoroughly nationalized: voters pay vastly more attention to what is going on in Washington, D.C., than to what’s going on in their own town or state.

The Democratic and the Republican Parties have become much more homogeneous, offering largely the same ideological profile in Alabama as they do in Vermont. In each election, Americans now face a choice between two clearly demarcated alternatives of action.

This goes a long way toward explaining why voters here in Salem are much more likely to turn out in presidential election years than in the November mid-term elections, and why they also are much more likely to turn out in mid-term elections than in the May primary elections where, usually, Salem City Council and Mayoral races are decided.

(Since if someone wins 50% +1 of the votes, the "primary" turns out to be the final election for that seat).

Mounk goes on to write:

Once upon a time, every community in America had its own store with its own local products. Today, chains like Walmart and Home Depot offer the same wares all over the country. The parties, Hopkins believes, have undergone a similar process of homogenization: “Just as an Egg McMuffin is the same in every McDonald’s, America’s two major political parties are increasingly perceived to offer the same choices throughout the country.”

...Hopkins is a sure-footed guide to the twilight of local politics, and he’s aware of the risks that these developments may pose. Voters’ focus on national issues, he points out, is likely to “crowd out more local concerns.”

And since most Americans pay little attention to local politics and are likely to vote for just about any candidate who shares their party affiliation, mayors and governors no longer have as much reason to place the needs of their constituents over those of special-interest groups: “Their actions in office might well reflect the wishes of the people most likely to advance their careers, whether they are activists, donors, or fellow partisans from other states.”

We've seen this happening in Salem.

In the early 2000's the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce decided it was time to get rid of the liberal Mayor and City Council majority. The Chamber didn't target individual local politicians. The goal was to put conservatives in charge of City Hall, not progressives.

After this goal was achieved, a predictable counter-reaction occurred.

Progressive Salem was formed with the opposite goal: to put liberals in charge of City Hall. And that goal also was achieved, since currently progressives have a 5-4 majority on the City Council, which will change to 6-3 next January, since Jackie Leung unseated Steve McCoid in last May's election and will take office in 2019.

The New Yorker piece ends on an semi-optimistic note. Yes, we now live in an era of intense national political polarization. And this filters down to local and state politics. 

Here in Salem, as in most places, local offices are nominally non-partisan. But as noted above, in recent years local elections have taken on a R v. D or conservative v. progressive tone, echoing the national Us versus Them mentality.

I don't think this is a good thing, but at the moment it is an inescapable thing.

Trump has made it very difficult for Democrats to support any Republicans, and Trump's high approval rating among Republicans makes it very difficult for them to support any Democrats. 

Nonetheless, Mounk leaves us with some room for hope.

The nationalization of American politics has led to the rise of two political mega-identities. But it does not foreordain that they will be incapable of finding common ground, or that the current period of intense partisanship will go on forever. In the past, times of heightened animosity have often been followed by periods of unexpected calm.

Ordinary citizens are less polarized in their opinions than the political parties in Washington; many long for moderation. And, despite the central role that attacks on minorities played in Trump’s campaign, most Americans have grown more, not less, tolerant of compatriots who do not share their ethnicity, their religion, or their sexual orientation.

In ways that Schlesinger anticipated, the deep divide between supporters and opponents of President Trump is subjecting national unity to a fearful test. The danger that a highly nationalized and deeply partisan politics poses to American institutions is undoubtedly real.

But, just as it would be naïve to pretend that a happy ending is assured because our political institutions have managed to incorporate new groups in the past, so, too, would it be cynical to conclude that America is too riven with conflict—or too rotten with injustice—to be redeemed. 

Salem Chamber of Commerce still pushing billion dollar bridge boondoggle

Yesterday someone sent me a couple of pages from a recent Salem Area Chamber of Commerce publication that boasted about them adding 188 new members last April, which is going to enable the Chamber to keep pushing for a new bridge across the Willamette River.
Download Salem Chamber of Commerce pages

Here's a close-up of the highlighted part.

The payroll tax would have allowed the Salem bus service, Cherriots, to offer evening and weekend bus service. Here's how I described the ill-considered opposition to this tax in an October 2015 blog post about the ballot measure.

Opponents of the payroll tax have most of the money and power in this town. The Salem Area Chamber of Commerce has gobs of money to spend through its Create Jobs PAC, largely donated by giant corporations like Salem Health.

The anti-payroll tax campaign has been marked by the lies, half-truths, and sleaze that are the hallmark of Chuck Adams, the New Media NW consultant that the Create Jobs PAC has hired repeatedly. 

So once again, the Chamber of Commerce is resorting to dirty tricks, even though they already have the advantage of way more money and power than the good-hearted, but comparatively destitute, supporters of the small payroll tax possess.

I wonder how many members of the Salem Chamber of Commerce agreed with the Chamber's decision to oppose the mass transit payroll tax. Surely not all members. Maybe not even most members. After all, being able to use the bus to get to work, or to shop, on weekends and evenings sure seems like a pro-business policy.

Likewise, I now wonder how many Chamber members agree with their membership money being used to push for a unneeded, unwanted, and unpaid-for Third Bridge, also known as the Salem River Crossing. 

If necessary approvals ever were to be obtained for the bridge, which isn't going to happen anytime soon, given the opposition of a clear majority of the City Council to a Third Bridge, bridge advocates like the Chamber of Commerce would have to wrestle with how to pay for the billion dollar price tag (the $430 million estimated cost of the bridge, plus inflation, plus financing costs, equals about a billion bucks).

The funding plan for the bridge, shown above, relies on a $1.50 each way toll on both the new bridge and existing bridges that would raise $175 million from people using the three bridges, most of whom would live in the Salem area. 

Local residents also would pay $85 million in increased gas taxes, $85 million in increased vehicle registration fees, and $30 in increased Salem property taxes.

So the Salem Chamber of Commerce is pushing for an approximate $375 million tolling/tax/fee increase on local citizens. But, oh my!, a $5 million payroll tax was too much to bear; $375 million, though, that's OK, because it's for a Billion Dollar Boondoggle of a bridge.

Again, how many Chamber members know that the organization they're paying dues to wants a massive tax/tolling/fee increase, over a third of a billion dollars, to be inflicted on people in the Salem area?

Have Chamber members been informed about how much a new bridge would cost, and who would be expected to pay for it?

Have Chamber members been polled about whether they endorse the Chamber's push for a new bridge, even though there are much less expensive ways of reducing rush hour congestion in the downtown and West Salem area?

Conservatives freak out when labor unions use dues for political purposes. Yet the Salem Chamber of Commerce is bragging about how the membership dollars brought in by 188 new members are going to make it possible to lobby for a billion dollar Salem River Crossing.

Was this disclosed to prospective members during the membership drive? I bet it wasn't. Sure seems like Chamber members should be allowed to choose whether they want their membership dues used for controversial causes many don't support.

First meeting of Salem Reporter was with business leaders. Bad optics.

I was pleased to be one of the first to fork out $100 for a year's subscription to the Salem Reporter, a new online news source headed up by Les Zaitz that will start publication in September.

Right after I subscribed, I emailed Zaitz and the three reporters he's hired, telling them how disappointed I've been that the Statesman Journal (Salem's daily newspaper, owned by Gannett) hasn't run stories that challenge the Powers That Be in this town.

I’ll end by observing that in recent years I’ve been frustrated by the failure of the Statesman Journal to do genuine investigative reporting in this town. Quite a few times I’ve contacted a Statesman Journal reporter about an investigative story idea, sometimes after I’ve already done a good share of the investigating on my own.

 

I’d be told by the reporter, “This sounds interesting. I’ll talk to my editor.” And that would be the end of it.

 

If a story cast a business leader, or City officials, in a bad light, it wouldn’t be written. Salem Weekly would do its best to get the word out, but a bi-weekly publication with minimal online presence is hampered in doing good investigative reporting, especially given the lack of reporting resources Salem Weekly has.

 

So I’m looking forward to Salem Reporter doing a better job of keeping citizens informed of what the Powers That Be in this town are up to.

 

I’m glad that, according to the Poynter story, you aren’t expecting much from advertising revenue. I’ve heard Statesman Journal management talk about how news, opinion, and advertising are all separate, and I wish this was true, but my experience is that it isn’t for this Gannett paper.

 

Well, this morning I got an email from Salem Reporter that talked about their first meeting with people in this town. Below is the accompanying photo and a description of that meeting. My commentary follows.

Larry Tokarski, founder of Salem Reporter, invited veterans to the front of Thursday's session to lead the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Good morning..........

Response to the news of the launch of Salem Reporter has been so heartening to our team. We have had encouragement from all quarters. We have had people sign up for our free newsletter. We have had people subscribe. The first subscription - from Pat McCormick - came in just 18 minutes after our site went live.

On Thursday, we hosted a morning function for local business leaders to explain what is the Salem Reporter and how they could help give Salem news it's been missing. In the crowd was "Mr. Oregon," Gerry Frank. We had Salem stalwarts such as Dick Withnell, Richard Kreitzberg and Bob Cannon. We had a great contingent from the Salem Chamber of Commerce, led by Nick Williams. We also had long-time friends such as Ron Anderson and Ray and Keeta Lauderdale.

At the very least, this is bad optics.

Many of my fellow liberals are worried that since funding for Salem Reporter has come from Larry Tokarski, a businessman who is a big supporter of conservative causes in Salem, this online newspaper won't be free to report on issues that put Tokarski or the Chamber of Commerce in a bad light.

So it was a curious, but perhaps telling, decision to have the very first Salem Reporter meeting feature (1) Tokarski, and (2) local business and Chamber of Commerce leaders. 

If the Salem Reporter had wanted to set off alarm bells in the minds of progressives, it's difficult to think of a better way to do this. 

Now, I readily admit that this initial meeting doesn't mean the Salem Reporter is going to go soft on the business community in Salem or the Chamber of Commerce. However, I found it somewhat worrisome that the business people were asked "to help give Salem news it's been missing."

Personally, what I feel Salem has been missing the most is aggressive investigative journalism. The Salem Business Journal and Statesman Journal have plenty of business-friendly stories. Salem Weekly does some good reporting, but lacks the resources to dig deep into issues.

Thus I've been hoping, and continue to hope, that the Salem Reporter will fearlessly go where the Statesman Journal fears to tread. For example, there's good reason to consider that urban renewal funds have been used by the City of Salem to further "crony capitalism," something I've written extensively about in regard to the Park Front Building. 

To it's credit, the Salem Business Journal published an opinion piece that I wrote on this subject. But the Statesman Journal, nada. 

Anyway, I'm still optimistic about the Salem Reporter.

I just wish Zaitz and company had chosen to start off with an open house of some sort aimed at the general population of concerned citizens, rather than begin with a get-together of business leaders. There are two additional Salem Reporter meetings planned, but both also are invitation-only. 

For those in government......

We have two more functions scheduled to help introduce people to the Salem Reporter. Next week, we host public officials, elected officials, those who work in government, and volunteers who serve on so many boards and commissions. The hour-long event will be at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 16, in the Board Room at the Salem Convention Center. If you serve in such a capacity and haven't received your invitation yet, no matter! Join us. Just shoot a note to [email protected] to let us know you're coming so we can put on enough coffee.

For those in the nonprofit world.........

The week after that, we're planning a function with the executive leadership and volunteer board members for Salem-area nonprofits. The hour-long event will be at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 23, at the Salem Convention Center. If you serve in such a capacity and want to attend to learn how to work with Salem Reporter to cover the important work of these organizations, drop an email to [email protected].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was my comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salem is still paying the price for this.

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

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

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