Salem Political Snark

My totally made-up 2024 local and national political awards

It's the last day of 2024.

Time to spend a (very) few minutes inspecting the recesses of my brain about what struck me, politically, during the past year, before I turn my attention to a Very Important Question: will CNN be up with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen consuming copious amounts of alcohol at Times Square, or will this be a dry year for the only New Year's Eve hosts I can stand to watch?

Here's some 2024 awards.

Biggest national fuck-up. Joe Biden ignoring his almost-but-not-quite-explicit pledge to only be a one-term president before turning the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination to a much younger candidate. That ended up happening anyway, but Biden hanging on way past his best by date really hurt the Democratic cause.

Biggest local fuck-up. After five progressives on the City Council voted to approve without a vote by the citizenry an employee payroll tax on people who work in Salem, conservative business interests forced a vote anyway in November 2023, and the tax was soundly defeated. This caused Mayor Chris Hoy's popularity to sink, as he was one of those progressives, which led to a conservative, Julie "I'm not related to Chris" Hoy being elected Mayor of a city that leans progressive, except when progressive politicians are punished for doing stupid things.

Brightest local rising star. City councilor Vanessa Nordyke was the only progressive on the City Council unscathed by the payroll tax fiasco, as she wanted the tax to be voted on by citizens. Nordyke seems destined for higher office, much higher than Mayor.

Brightest national rising star. Trump's gigantic shadow blots out any Republican rising stars. On the Democratic side, I'm hoping some appear, damn soon! I like Michigan's Governor, Gretchen Whitmer. California's Governor Gavin Newsom is appealing, but his hair is too slickly styled for my taste.

People I least want to get an email or text message from ever again. No contest: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. 

Decision that will either turn out horribly or terrific. For Salem, the soon-to-be imposition of downtown parking meters. This will either drive people away from visiting downtown or be the savior of a struggling urban core. For the United States, the attempted removal of millions of undocumented migrants. This will either cement Trump's popularity as a president who shook things up in a good way or earn the wrath of a country that realized too late how valuable those undocumented migrants were to our economy. 

Most pleasingly fanatic local citizen activists. Jim Scheppke and his merry band of library supporters, who have been besieging city officials with calls to make the Salem Library and its West Salem branch a high budget priority. Librarians are known for telling people to keep their voices down. But they've been speaking loudly about preserving library services in the face of upcoming general fund deficits.

Politician I'm really happy lived to be 100. Jimmy Carter. While he was alive, I failed to realize what a good president he was. Now that he's dead, this historians who have been talking about him remind me of Carter's accomplishments, not least of which was recognizing way back in the late 1970s that global warming was an existential threat to humanity. Putting solar panels on the White House roof was a visionary move, even though Ronald Reagan removed them after he beat Carter in the 1980 election.

Salem City Club looked at ranked choice voting, which is on November ballot

Last Friday ranked choice voting was discussed at a Salem City Club program that featured Shannon Grimes from the Sightline Institute in Seattle, where she focuses on electoral reforms in Washington and Oregon. 

This November Oregonians will vote on Measure 117. If approved, the measure puts ranked choice voting into effect on January 1, 2028. Measure 117 was referred to voters by the 2024 state legislature, where it was passed on a party line vote, aside from one Republican who voted with the Democrats.

So what is ranked choice voting? Here's an explanation that reflects what I heard Grimes say. 

Measure 117 requires that ranked choice voting be used for partisan primaries and general elections to federal and state offices, including the president, U.S. senator, U.S. representative, governor, secretary of state, attorney general, state treasurer, and commissioner of labor and industries.

For some reason, the Oregon legislature exempted itself from being subject to ranked choice voting. Cities, towns, and other local governments can use ranked choice voting if they desire.

Currently Benton County, which includes Corvallis, uses ranked choice voting in local elections. In the upcoming November election, Portland voters will use ranked choice voting to elect a mayor, auditor, and three councilors to represent their district. Nationally about 50 places use ranked choice voting. 

Grimes said that 80-90% of people say ranked choice voting is easy and they like it. Voters perceive campaigns as less negative, since candidates have to appeal to more than their most avid backers given that ranked choice voting moves from whoever gets the most votes (which could be as low as 20% in a race with many candidates) to whoever gets the support of a majority of voters (since as shown in the example above, votes for the lowest ranked candidate are allocated to other candidates until someone gets at least 50% + one vote).

Grimes added that underrepresented candidates (such of people of color) tend to run and win more under a ranked choice voting system as they don't have to worry about being a spoiler candidate. That probably explains why the endorsers on the Yes on 117 web site include many organizations representing the underrepresented, along with progressive, environmental, and civic groups like the League of Women Voters.

TIME magazine offers a few examples of how ranked choice voting likely would have affected the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections.

The most notorious example of this [spoiler effect] is the 2000 presidential election, when nearly 3 million mostly left-leaning voters cast their ballots for third-party candidate Ralph Nader. If ranked-choice voting had been in place at the time, Democrat Al Gore may have prevailed in the key state of Florida, where neither Gore nor Republican George W. Bush won a majority of the vote, says Don Saari, author of Decisions and Elections.

(Florida was the center of a vote-counting scandal, and Bush’s narrow win there ensured his ascension to the White House, despite losing the popular vote nationwide.)

“Gore was the second-place choice of many of Ralph Nader’s supporters, particularly in the states of Florida and New Hampshire, where Bush narrowly won,” says Saari. “A goal of Nader’s Green Party was to reach a certain percentage of the total vote, which is a reason why many Nader voters did not want to vote for their second-ranked Gore.”

...Because it helps eliminate vote-splitting, a ranked-choice voting system can have the effect of encouraging more third-party and centrist candidates, advocates say. Michael Bloomberg, a centrist, third-party candidate, considered running in the 2016 presidential election but decided not to upon concluding that he might split the Democratic vote with Clinton, increasing the chances of Trump’s victory. (Trump, of course, still won the election, though he lost the popular vote to Clinton.)

Again, the 2016 election offers a good hypothetical example. If a ranked-choice voting system had been in place in Michigan, then Clinton, not Trump, may have won that state. Because neither candidate received a majority of the Michigan vote, ranked-choice voting would have come into play. And if we can assume that most Stein voters would have chosen Clinton as their second choice, the former Secretary of State would have won, according to Saari. Trump won Michigan by 10,700; Stein received more than 51,000 votes.

Though these examples are of how ranked choice voting could have benefitted Democratic candidates, and Alaska is considering doing away with ranked choice voting after it led to a loss by Sarah Palin in a special election to fill a seat in the House of Representatives, which ended up being won by a Democrat, an avid local Democrat, Aileen Kaye, sent me some reasons to oppose Measure 117 after I'd asked her to do this, knowing from a question she asked at the City Club program that she isn't a fan. 

Why I will vote “No” on M. 117, Ranked Choice Voting

1. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  As an active member of the Oregon and Marion County Democratic Party, I am very grateful that we Dems hold all the statewide offices, including the governorship, the Oregon House, and the Oregon Senate.  The Marion County Democratic Central Committee voted last week to oppose this measure.  There is no good reason to change Oregon’s election system. 

2. Legislative leadership was paid BIG bucks to vote for this.  They took the money and voted for it; but they omitted themselves from having to be elected via Ranked Choice Voting!  And no one can find out the names of the contributors to the PAC’s who lobbied hard for this!  I think the push and the money is NOT from Oregonians.  

3. Having gone door-to-door for the past many elections, I will tell you most voters pay little attention to government/elections.  They also do not like voting for people they know nothing of.  To have several choices for an office will result in many voters throwing up their hands and not voting for anyone for that office.

4. It will be very expensive!  There is no mention of this and there is no info on from where the funding would come. 

5. Election workers are already very stressed due to the MAGA election-denying culture.  This will this add to the stress because there is no way we will get election results the night of the election due to Ranked Choice Voting.

Lastly, if you want to experience ranked choice voting with dessert preferences, scroll down to Example #3 on this Ballotpedia article. I was shocked that people are rating ice cream above cake, which obviously is the best dessert. (Cake did make it to the third round, where it was knocked out in favor of chocolate and ice cream, the winner.)

Salem's "news desert" makes it tough for the city to pass a tax increase

In reading a Salem Reporter story about the effort of city officials to get voter approval of a property tax increase in order to deal with a $8 million - $13 million gap between revenues and expenses, I was struck by the several mentions of communicating with the public about this problem.

Here's some excerpts from "City Council discusses possible next steps to address budgetary shortfalls" by Joe Siess.

Salem city councilors appear ready to put a measure before voters next May to raise property taxes to avoid sweeping cuts to city programs.

But councilors made clear during a work session on Monday, Aug. 19, that they want a clear signal the community would back such increased taxation before they seek formal approval.

The majority of the council gave City Manager Keith Stahley the green light to plan for polling likely voters on what city services they would be willing to pay for and how much they would be willing to pay.

...Stahley on Monday also suggested auditing city finances and a deeper look at the city’s financial forecast. Those would provide transparency for citizens and ensure they have a firm understanding of the city’s budgetary shortfalls, he said.  

...Stahley told Salem Reporter after the meeting his perception is that while councilors support a tax levy going to voters next May, there is also tension about it in the sense that the city hopes to ensure the community both understands the problem and supports a possible solution. 

Councilors agreed engaging the community and adequately communicating the city’s budget situation will be a key element moving forward.

...The city council largely agreed that it will take more time to gain community trust, especially after the payroll tax failure [in November 2023].

....City Councilor Jose Gonzalez said he believes nothing can be done about the budget situation if the council fails to gain public support and understanding. 

So city officials are talking a lot about engaging the public, but aside from a poll of several hundred citizens in a city with about 178,000 people, there wasn't any mention of how those officials are going to communicate with the public.

This isn't easy in Salem. Unlike Portland, Eugene, Medford, and Bend, we don't have any television stations. Our "local" TV news comes from occasional stories on the Portland stations.

Newspaper-wise, our daily paper is the Statesman Journal. I couldn't find any current circulation figures for the Statesman Journal, but it's clear that the readership is way down in recent years. In December 2019 I wrote a blog post, "Statesman Journal print circulation is down 36% in last two years." 

It's interesting that while Eugene and Salem have roughly equal populations, the Eugene Register-Guard had a 2019 print circulation that was almost exactly double that of the Salem Statesman Journal. And the Eugene paper had a much lower decline in circulation, 23.9% for the two years vs. Salem's 35.7%.

I was curious to see where the Statesman Journal ranked among the 200 daily newspapers. I looked through the searchable database and found that 6 newspapers had an equal two year circulation decline of 35.7%; 62 newspapers had a larger circulation decline; and 132 newspapers had a smaller circulation decline.

So the Statesman Journal was in the bottom third, approximately. Meaning, about two-thirds of the 200 newspapers had a smaller two-year print circulation decline than the Statesman Journal.

The 2019 Statesman Journal print circulation was 14,494. It's likely considerably lower now. Many people have a digital subscription, but I'm pretty sure there's no public information about the number of digital subscriptions.

The online-only Salem Reporter does a better job of covering City of Salem news than the Statesman Journal does. Again, there's no public information about how many digital subscriptions the Salem Reporter has.

So it's tough to reach the residents of Salem. It's no exaggeration to say that we live in a "news desert." A journalism school offered this definition:

We define a news desert as: a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level.

...Many newspapers have become ghosts of their former selves, both in terms of the quality and quantity of their editorial content and the reach of their readership.

That's certainly the case with the Statesman Journal. There's very little local news. There's no editorial page, so no letters to the editor, no opinion pieces. The Salem Reporter also doesn't have an editorial section, though it does a decent job with local news.

Thus city officials face a tough task in communicating with voters about the need for raising more revenue and why a property tax increase is the best way to do this. That would be a difficult job under any circumstances. It's considerably more difficult in a "news desert" city like Salem.

Citizen activism prevents additional Salem Library cuts. For now.

It's great when elected officials do the right thing, even when they're forced into it by citizen activism.

But most of the credit for the city's budget committee voting yesterday to prevent additional cuts to the Salem Public Library by using money from the hotel tax goes to Jim Scheppke and Lois Stark, fervent advocates for the library who did a great job organizing citizens to press for No More Cuts.

Without Scheppke and Stark doing what they did, almost surely the West Salem branch would have been closed, with staff and hours at the main library severely curtailed from the already diminished level.

But public pressure spurred Mayor Chris Hoy, who is in a tough race for reelection against Councilor Julie Hoy (no relation), to dig around in the City of Salem spare change container and find $1.2 million that could be used for the library as a temporary stopgap measure, not a permanent funding source.

Not without controversy, though, as these excerpts from a Salem Reporter story, "Budget committee votes to fund Salem's library following outpouring of community support," point out.

Salem will keep its remaining librarians this year after the city’s budget committee unanimously voted Wednesday to use money from the city’s hotel tax to fend off proposed cuts.

The vote came after over an hour of public testimony from library employees and a diverse group of supporters that included a state senator, educators, parents and one elementary school student. More than 75 people submitted written testimony opposing cuts.

...The money the city will now use to pay library operating costs was savings sitting in a city account intended to support tourism and cultural facilities. The money comes from a tax levied on hotel stays within city limits.

That fund had $4.2 million at the start of the budget year, which Chief Financial Officer Josh Eggleston said was intended to support ongoing programs in the future.

...City Attorney Dan Atchison said during the meeting that he evaluated Hoy’s original proposal to fund the library and believes it is consistent with state law and the city charter. The tax is required to be used for specific purposes, including improvements to, or operation of, major tourist attractions or cultural facilities and activities that promote tourism.

“It is my determination that the Salem library meets both definitions of a cultural facility, as well as a tourism facility under state law,” he said.

He said he anticipates there will be further discussions with the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association, which has objected to the use of the funds to the library. In a statement, they said that any money raised through increases in the tax rate since 2003 must be allocated 70% to tourism promotion or facilities. Thirty percent can be used however the local government sees fit.

Association President Jason Brandt, in a Thursday phone interview with Salem Reporter, said that the associate is still assessing the situation and use of funds.

“Unless a library has a substantial purpose of supporting tourism, then it doesn’t count as a tourism-related facility,” he said. The unrestricted portion of the tax funds can be used on city functions like libraries, police, fire and streets.

Brandt said the association plans to take action, as it has against other Oregon cities, if it determines the funds haven’t followed those rules. 

It does seem to be a stretch to claim that the Salem Public Library is a tourist attraction. Or a cultural facility visitors to Salem would seek out. However, 30% of $4.2 million, the amount in the hotel tax fund, is $1.26 million.

Since $1.2 million would be used for the library, if the 30% unrestricted use is applied to the $4.2 million, the City of Salem could be on solid legal ground.

Help save the Salem Public Library from ruinous budget cuts

"Help. They're threatening me with grievous harm. I need my friends to defend me, because I can't do it myself."

That's what the Salem Public Library would be saying, if it could speak. Since it can't, we library lovers have to do the speaking for the library. 

The threat is real. City officials are planning to markedly slash the library budget again, after already making deep cuts in staffing, hours, and services. 

NO MORE CUTS. That's the message from Jim Scheppke, retired State Librarian, and Lois Stark, a member of the Library Advisory Board, as you can read below. I've copied in an email they sent me and other supporters of the Salem Public Library.

Please take a few minutes and do one or more of their action items. If enough people stand up for the library, there's a good chance city officials and the City Council will rethink the very bad idea of inflicting additional ruinous budget cuts on the Salem Public Library.

***************************************

Dear Friends:

I am writing to you on behalf of myself and Lois Stark to ask for your help to prevent devastating cuts to our public library. As you may know I was privileged to serve as the State Librarian of Oregon for two decades. Lois Stark was a member of our Library Advisory Board serving several years as Chair.

 

Here’s the situation. Next Wednesday, April 17th, our City Manager will present his recommendation for the FY 2025 City budget. We have learned that his recommendation for the library will be something that has come to be known as “Option 1.” Here is what Option 1 would do beginning July 1st:

• Completely close the West Salem Branch Library after 67 years of operation.
• Layoff eight library employees in addition to the 7.35 positions eliminated last February. Several bilingual staff who were “last hired” would lose their jobs.
• Reduce the operating hours of the main library from 38 to 25-30 per week (3 or 4 days).
• Reduce library programs, including reading programs for children.
• Other unspecified cutbacks to library collections and services.

If Option 1 is approved by the Citizen Budget Committee, Salem will have by far the worst public library services in the state and the worst public library services of any capital city in the country. There are 16 public libraries in Oregon with operating hours between 25 and 30, but their average service area population  is 3,009! Our library serves about 180,000 Salem residents as well as another 39,000 Keizer residents and  many more out-of-city residents with borrowing privileges. 

 

Imagine the working conditions for the skeleton crew of library staff when tens of thousands of library users are attempting to use the library on the few days the library is open? It’s unimaginable. There has probably never been another public library in the US that has attempted to serve a population of over 200,000 with a library open 3-4 days a week.

 

But we can stop this from happening.

 

What it will take is an outpouring of support for our library from everyone who cares. Our message: NO MORE CUTS. Our library services have suffered enough. Even today our two libraries are only open half the hours they were open two decades ago (48 compared to 96). Enough is enough. NO MORE CUTS.

 

Here is what you can do:

• Send written testimony to the Citizen Budget Committee for their meeting on April 17th. Address your email to <[email protected]>.
• Send an email to your City Councilor. All the Councilors are on the Citizen Budget Committee.
• Attend the Budget Committee meeting on Wednesday, April 17th. We will be rallying outside the Council Chambers beginning at 5:30. The meeting starts at 6.
• Sign-up for public comment at the Budget Committee meeting. Make your voice heard!

As some of you know, Salem Public Library used to be one of the best public libraries in Oregon. Now it is among the worst. And Option 1 would make it MUCH WORSE. We can’t let it happen without putting up a fight — a fight for our library workers and for our library services.

 

Please, please help Lois and me prevent this devastation of our library services. So much is at stake. Forward this to others who might help.

 

Thanks for listening!
Jim Scheppke and Lois Stark

Resounding defeat of payroll tax should spur City officials to explore fresh ideas

In elections, usually even the most unqualified and unknown candidate gets 30 to 40% of the vote.

So when the payroll tax got a "Yes" from only 18% of Salem voters in yesterday's election, they weren't just sending a message. They were screaming it from the rooftops. Both in the Marion County part of Salem and the Polk County part in west Salem (where just 16% said "Yes").

With the election over, and the certainty that remaining ballots to be counted won't appreciably change the outcome, we enter the what now? phase. 

A Salem Reporter story about the payroll tax defeat indicates that at the moment, City officials seem to be repeating the same ideas and policies that led up to the defeat. 

The city is planning to convene a revenue task force to seek additional options for bringing in money for city services. The city’s last revenue task force met in 2018, and their recommendations included adding the operations fee to utility bills and implementing a payroll tax.

...Without the $27 million a year estimated from the payroll tax, the city plans to cut spending on services to preserve its financial reserves. Their baseline proposal for cuts over the next five years, which councilors will continue to discuss, includes pulling funding from homeless shelters, closing the West Salem Branch of the library, reducing park maintenance, cutting specialized police teams and closing a fire station.

...“We just can’t make cuts as drastic as will be necessary without the revenue, so we’ve got to come up with a new plan,” [Mayor] Hoy said, adding that nothing is off the table when it comes to revenue options, including a payroll tax in a different form. He said the city council is going to take lessons from this election before making a new decision.

I heartily agree with Mayor Hoy that the city council should learn lessons from the election. However, I'd like city officials to be as expansive as possible in that exercise.

The most important thing they can do is shine a spotlight not on voters or on opponents of the payroll tax, but on themselves. Salem's Angry Owl had this to say in two tweets (I refuse to call it an X post, even though Twitter and Tweets are no more).

Great questions.

Was it City Manager Stahley who recommended the payroll tax? Was it someone else in the City Manager's office? Whoever it was, that person (or people) needs some urgent reeducation about how to deal with a City of Salem budget problem. Because the payroll tax proposal was a debacle that calls to mind the famous SNAFU acronym.

Situation normal: all fucked up. 

Now, depending on someone's point of view toward City Council goings on, there's room for debate about the extent to which the fuck up on the payroll tax reflects the normal situation at City Hall.My perspective is that it's quite common, which is why I'm advocating for a No More Business As Usual approach to the what now? question.

I say this because it's going to be temping for city staff, the mayor, and city council to take a technocratic approach where what's talked about is different revenue sources and different budget cuts, ignoring the elephant in the room that is the way city government typically functions.

As Angry Owl said, the mayor and city council are volunteers. They have no staff of their own. They need to cram in their governmental duties along with their usual job, family life, and such. This makes them dependent on City of Salem staff for just about everything.

Those staff may be called public servants, but often they serve the bureaucracy to which they belong more than the public. The payroll tax brought this out clearly. With the strong resistance both to the tax itself and to it being imposed without a vote of the people, it should have been obvious that the payroll tax was almost certainly doomed.

Yet the reaction of city officials was along the lines of: The public doesn't understand the budget as clearly as we do, so we just need to explain things to them; then they'll come around to our way of seeing things, which obviously is the correct way.

There's a lot of arrogance and condescension in this perspective. That irritated people.

Rather than viewing criticism of the payroll tax and the initial choice to not refer it to voters (until they were forced to by a petition referendum) as an opportunity to rethink this revenue option, city officials and a 5-4 majority on the city council decided to go full steam ahead and damn the torpedo of it being voted down -- which it was, big time.

Now, I realize that the chance of city officials using the defeat of the payroll tax to rethink how they engage with the public and involve citizens in policy decisions is small, minuscule even. And maybe they're right. Perhaps some tweaks to the tax and a better marketing campaign is all that's needed.

I simply see a bigger problem here. This debacle has led to a marked decline in public trust toward city officials, the mayor, and city council. Restoring that trust should be Job #1, not appointing a new revenue committee to come up with other revenue options.

The City of Salem doesn't need to do everything differently. But any observer of City Hall knows that they need to do lots of things differently. The payroll tax just made that more obvious, because the need has always been there.

Watch the video of Salem Reporter's town hall meeting on the payroll tax

Everybody should applaud the Salem Reporter, our city's online alternative to the Statesman Journal, for holding a town hall on the proposed payroll tax at the Elsinore Theatre this evening.

For whether you oppose or favor the payroll tax, or don't have an opinion on it, it's great that a public debate on the tax happened prior to voters casting their ballot on it in the upcoming November election.

I didn't attend the town hall. But I've watched some of the You Tube video of it, which I'll share below. (The screenshot above is just to show the debaters, Oregon Business & Industry president Preston Mann, who opposes the tax, and Salem City Council president Virginia Stapleton, who favors it.) 

Both did a good job, from my viewing of part of their remarks. The Salem Reporter had a live blog of the town hall which provides a summary of what transpired. In case the live blog isn't accessible to those who don't subscribe to the Salem Reporter, here's what was said about the debaters' remarks.

6:15 p.m. – Salem City Council president Virginia Stapleton is leading the pro-tax campaign Save Salem.

Stapleton said the passing of Measure 5 in 1990 resulted in Salem property taxes being capped at $10 per 100,000 of assessed value. Seven years later, Measure 50 created a permanent tax rate. “These rates have been frozen in time ever since the 1997,” she said.

Stapleton said the cost of running the city is outpacing its revenue from property taxes. Salem officials have been slowly cutting services for over two decades and have had to “get creative” to find ways to boost revenue, she said.

That includes the city’s operations fee, which went to utility bills on July 1 and goes to emergency services, libraries, parks and other services. “But we can no longer continue to make cuts,” she said.

If the payroll tax fails, the city’s proposed budget cuts include closing the west Salem library, reducing hours and days at the main Salem Public Library, Stapleton said.

She also said the city would need to cut seven positions at the Salem Fire Department, five positions from the Salem Police Department, 13 positions across support services such as the city’s Human Resources, Information Technology and Legal departments, and seven positions from parks and maintenance crews.

“Salem is a wonderful town and it has amazing potential. The one glaring issue is the city’s general fund,” she said. “The payroll tax will stabilize that general fund and provide the city the ability to keep investing in our community and meeting the needs of our residents.”

6:30 p.m. – Oregon Business and Industry led the campaign to get the vote put on the ballot.

OBI President Preston Mann said his organizations sees dozens of tax measures come through the state Legislature. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a tax as complicated and convoluted as this one,” he said.

Mann said he finds the proposed tax troubling because most residents are not clear on when they enter or exit city limits.

He said as much as the city budget might be in a crisis, family budgets are as well. “I think we can’t forget that in this conversation. People are having a very difficult time paying the bills right now, and 500 to $1,000 per family, that’s a lot of money. And frankly, I don’t think people can afford that,” he said.

Mann said he rejects any implication that those opposing the tax don’t support homeless services, police or firefighters.

“Many of the 13,000 people that signed this petition, we simply disagree with this particular tax increase. This particular approach is complicated and cost too much and there has to be a better way,” he said.

Councilor Nordyke says city officials have lost public trust

Way to go, City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke.

Vanessa Nordyke and furry friend

Your responses to questions asked by the Salem Reporter about the payroll tax approved by the City Council on a narrow 5-4 margin without a vote of the people are a great example of speaking truth to power.

The Salem Reporter sent questions to the four councilors who wanted Salem citizens to vote on the payroll tax. Only Vanessa Nordyke and Jose Gonzalez responded in time for publication. 

Here's two of the questions, along with Nordyke's responses. I've highlighted in red her comments about the City of Salem losing public trust.

If you believe some source of new revenue is needed, what would you propose and how much would that raise? 

Given the ever-changing cost  of inflation, housing, and gas, the moment you quote a number it becomes out of date. I can tell you one thing: I would not propose a payroll tax that bypasses the voters! I would’ve held listening sessions with the community and business leaders about how best to raise revenue rather than unilaterally passing a payroll tax. Unfortunately, people are so outraged by the payroll tax vote that anything the city says now is likely to fall on deaf ears. Trust has been broken. 

Do you believe councilors and city leaders have done enough to seek a regular source of state funding to compensate the city for losses from non-taxable state property in city limits? If not, what would you do differently?

Not even close. Most people have no idea that city leadership tried to get state funding. They missed opportunities to invite city councilors, local leaders and voters to join forces. The city could have rallied the people to write letters to legislators and sign up to testify at the Oregon Capitol. Residents could have called their legislators to take action. We could’ve come together as a community to make the ask, but that’s just not how the city does things.

Had the city done this, the response from lawmakers might’ve been quite different. Even if lawmakers still said no, the city and its residents would have emerged united in purpose, with a shared understanding of our budgetary reality. At that point, we could have met as a community to decide where we go from here. But the city didn’t use that path. Instead, the city unilaterally passed the payroll tax and refused to even continue the July 10 hearing to allow for more testimony.

When we include the public, we gain trust. When we exclude the public, we lose trust.

Instead of inviting the public into a transparent, meaningful, and inclusive discussion of our budgetary challenges, most residents felt blindsided by the payroll tax.

City government struggles with transparency. Outreach, transparency and community engagement are rock bottom on the city’s priority list. The city’s “we know best” mentality is exactly why people are outraged over the passage of the payroll tax without taking it to the voters.

I couldn't agree more. The payroll tax fiasco shows that city officials do indeed have a "we know best" mentality that fosters a mistrust of citizen involvement. Now the City of Salem faces an uphill battle in getting voters to approve the payroll tax in the November election.

As Nordyke repeatedly says above, it's tough to get citizens to trust city government when that government didn't trust the citizens enough to ask them to vote on the payroll tax. A business group had to gather about 13,000 signatures of Salem voters for a referendum petition to put the tax on the November ballot.

Now that's citizen involvement. 

Nordyke also made some excellent points about ways the City of Salem could be making the Police Department more efficient and effective, which could eliminate the need for the police funding included in the payroll tax proposal.

She's a strong advocate for a civilian-based mobile crisis unit similar to the highly successful CAHOOTS program in Eugene that has markedly reduced the number of 911 calls responded to by police officers.

In response to a Salem Reporter question, Nordyke said:

I agree with funding police as a general rule. But, I don’t agree that we should be paying police officers to form a homeless outreach team. The city could pay crisis workers to perform homeless outreach at a lower rate than police officer salaries.

...Despite my urging, the city considered but ultimately rejected including $300,000 for a mobile crisis unit (MCU) in the payroll tax. The payroll tax will raise over $27 million a year in additional revenue (if it is passed by the voters). Council discussed including $300,000 out of that $27 million to help fund an MCU. The final payroll tax voted upon by Council excluded the MCU funding. 

...An MCU is a 911-responsive unit of trained mental health workers and crisis workers who can respond to calls involving mental illness, substance abuse and homelessness. Mobile crisis units free up first responders and emergency rooms for higher acuity 911 calls. This payroll tax is being touted as a tax designed to address homelessness and public safety. Without an MCU, this tax fails to address a big chunk of our homelessness and public safety needs.

...This payroll tax prioritizes policing homelessness over ending homelessness. Policing homelessness doesn’t reduce homelessness, but it sure does cost a lot of taxpayer money.

I would use the last several annual surveys of City residents as a guide towards prioritizing what to keep and what to cut. Time and time again, those surveys told us to make addressing homelessness our top priority. The payroll tax doesn’t do that. People feel that the city isn’t listening to them.

There's a simple reason people feel that way. They're right. The city isn't listening to them.

Salem mayor and city councilors explain position on allowing payroll tax vote

The Salem Reporter (which I consider a subscription bargain for local news) had a great idea: ask Mayor Hoy and the other eight members of the City Council why they voted the way they did on the employee-paid payroll tax that ended up being approved on a contentious 5-4 vote this month.

Journalist Abbey McDonald did a great job with "Salem councilors explain their votes for and against the payroll tax."

I was particular interested in a question about why the City Council members either supported or opposed having Salem citizens vote on the payroll tax in the November election, since I was disappointed in the decision not to allow such a vote.

Now it looks likely that there will be a vote anyway.

Let Salem Vote, an effort backed by the Oregon Business & Industry organization, is working to get 4,000 signatures from registered voters in Salem that would be enough to place a referendum regarding the payroll tax on the November ballot, or apparently the May 2024 ballot if enough signatures aren't obtained by August 9.

Below I've shared the responses on the voting question from Mayor Hoy and six of the eight city councilors. Councilor Deanna Gwyn didn't respond to the survey and Councilor Trevor Phillips didn't address the specific questions. I've put "opposed" in red and "supported" in green to make it more obvious what the position of each member of the City Council was on the voting issue.

It's interesting that Mayor Hoy and Councilor Stapleton both said that the difficulty of organizing a campaign in support of a payroll tax measure was a central reason why they didn't favor letting Salem citizens vote on it.

This may turn out to be a bad decision, since it seems probable that a vote on the payroll tax is going to occur anyway through the referendum process. But the difference is that now lots of people are upset with the City Council ignoring the overwhelming majority of those who testified on the payroll tax who urged that the tax be voted on by Salem residents.

So it seems to me that Hoy and Stapleton made a mistake in thinking that it would be easier to implement the payroll tax without a vote of the people.

Actually, it's looking like that task is going to be harder after the decision to approve the tax by the City Council -- since that stirred up opposition to the council action that probably will carry over into opposing the payroll tax itself if the referendum ends up being successful.

Mayor Chris Hoy:
What is the primary reason you opposed letting voters decide on a major tax increase?

“I have information about the state of the budget, demand for service and the urgency of the matter that the average voter does not have. I believe this tax is in the best interest of the community.

Passing a tax measure at the ballot box would require a costly campaign that would take a tremendous amount of time and money. Having just run the bond campaign, I believe the prospects of raising that amount of money and finding councilors willing to spend the time necessary to run a campaign would be virtually impossible.” 

Councilor Virginia Stapleton:
What is the primary reason you opposed letting voters decide on a major tax increase?

“Many don’t know this, but the City cannot help run campaigns, they cannot pay for them or offer any other support other than information. It would be up to the nine of us on Council to do the heavy lift. We would need to raise anywhere between $30-100k (the more the better), design the campaign, run the education and outreach and in the end secure the vote. Most of us have fulltime jobs, family obligations and our continuing work on Council. … I am also concerned that we would have a campaign in opposition to the measure and most opposition efforts are very well funded making them hard to compete against. In the end, I knew that although it was the unpopular thing to do, it was the right one considering all the obstacles.   

Councilor Linda Nishioka:
What is the primary reason you opposed letting voters decide on a major tax increase?

“American democracy is founded on the principle of representative government, where elected officials, such as members of Congress, state legislatures, and city councils, are chosen by the people to make decisions for the benefit of their constituents and community. One of their key responsibilities is deciding on taxes, as they can create, modify, and implement tax laws that align with the interests and needs of the community.

My elected officials decided on most of the taxes I pay and have paid.”

Councilor Micky Varney:
What is the primary reason you opposed letting voters decide on a major tax increase?

“Expediency and urgency—in short, the gravity of the situation and the additional delay in that would have occurred had we waited 4 more months. With a delay, we would have been forced to start making cuts to programs. Slashing $13.9 million of community services which support park maintenance, our libraries, Center 50+, city-wide recreation programs would be devastating. Reductions to the permitting and planning department would further slow development and building of housing inventory. Trimming an additional $2 million from police and fire would increase risks to health, life and property. We’ve observed, from the ongoing Covid recovery period, how long it takes to get people hired and get the wheels turning again.  Reinstating programs down the road at some point will be slow and will be more expensive as well.”

Councilor Jose Gonzales:
What is the primary reason you supported letting voters decide on a major tax increase?

"This is one of those issues most of them will personally feel."

Councilor Julie Hoy:
What is the primary reason you supported letting voters decide on a major tax increase?

“Because it was the right thing to do.”

Councilor Vanessa Nordyke:
What is the primary reason you supported letting voters decide on a major tax increase?

"The people expect to vote on payroll taxes. Passing the payroll tax without taking it to the voters was a huge breach of trust. Based on the fact that we took three bond measures to a vote in recent history, and we were on the brink of taking this payroll tax to the voters in 2020, the voters reasonably expected to be asked for their vote on this tax.” 

Here's how the the payroll tax would be used, according to a Salem Reporter story. Police, fire, and homeless services uses only add up to $24.9 million of the $27.9 million total per year, so the remaining $3 million is for administration of the tax.

The tax is expected to bring in $27.9 million per year. City officials say that would pay for sustaining and expanding staffing and services at the police department, fire department, emergency and medical services, code enforcement and services for unsheltered people, including the navigation center and micro shelters.

The police department will get nearly half, at $10.5 million a year, according to an April staff report. Of that, $7 million would go to sustain current operations, $1.5 million to fund and expand the homeless outreach team, and add an additional $2 million to hire 13 officers for a community policing program focused downtown. More on what that means here.

Homeless services, including the navigation center and three micro shelters, would get $7.9 million according to the staff report. Those programs are currently being funded with state grants and federal Covid relief money. The city otherwise does not have money in place to keep those services running beyond 2025. Read more here.

The fire department would get the next largest chunk at $6.5 million, according to the staff report. Of that, $4.2 million would go to maintain current services, and $2.3 million would pay for an additional 12 employees. Without additional funding, the department will not be able to operate two planned new fire stations to be built starting in 2028. More on that here.

This blogger is irked at a Florida bill aimed at censoring bloggers

Well, if Florida state Senator Jason Brodeur, a Republican, wanted to get himself criticized by bloggers, his introduction of a bill that would take away the free speech rights of bloggers was a genius move.

But unfortunately, Brodeur has other motivations than social media masochism.

That seems clear, given that Florida governor Ron DeSantis hates the media because they call him on his right-wing authoritarian bullshit.

It's unclear whether Brodeur's bill has a chance of becoming law.

Regardless, it grabbed the attention of the New York Times editorial board, which published "Florida Is Trying to Take Away the American Right to Speak Freely" today. Here's how it starts out:

A homeowner gets angry at a county commission over a zoning dispute and writes a Facebook post accusing a local buildings official of being in the pocket of developers.

A right-wing broadcaster criticizing border policies accuses the secretary of homeland security of being a traitor.

A parent upset about the removal of a gay-themed book from library shelves goes to a school board meeting and calls the board chair a bigot and a homophobe.

All three are examples of Americans engaging in clamorous but perfectly legal speech about public figures that is broadly protected by the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in a case that dates back nearly 60 years, ruled that even if that speech might be damaging or include errors, it should generally be protected against claims of libel and slander.

All three would lose that protection — and be subject to ruinous defamation lawsuits — under a bill that is moving through the Florida House and is based on longstanding goals of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The bill represents a dangerous threat to free expression in the United States, not only for the news media, but for all Americans, whatever their political beliefs. There’s still time for Florida lawmakers to reject this crude pandering and ensure that their constituents retain the right to free speech.

“This isn’t just a press issue,” said Bobby Block, executive director of Florida’s First Amendment Foundation. “This is a death-to-public-discourse bill. Everyone, even conservatives, would have to second-guess themselves whenever they open their mouths to speak or sit in front of a keyboard.”

I don't make any money from blogging. My three blogs have never had any ads, and never will. Anyone can read what I write for free. In fact, I have to pay Typepad, my blogging service, an annual fee. So I lose money from blogging.

However, I have nothing against bloggers who get paid. After all, reporters get paid for their journalistic work, and blogging is a form of journalism -- just less formal and more opinionated than most other types.

The MaddowBlog on MSNBC describes the Florida bill.

“If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register” with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says.

As NBC News’ report added, the measure defines “elected state officer” as “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.”

Those who failed to comply could face thousands of dollars in state penalties.

If this approach sounds at all familiar, it might be because Vladimir Putin signed a similar measure — known as the “bloggers law” — in 2014, requiring online writers to register with the Russian government.

This bill is so horrible, and so obviously unconstitutional, that in normal times few people would take it seriously. But we don't live in normal times. 

Under Trump and his MAGA devotees, the Republican Party has dedicated itself to disparaging the media and promoting lies that, bizarrely, when the falsehoods are pointed out by reputable journalists, earns the epithet of "fake news," even though it's the lies that are truly fake news.

And the Supreme Court has shown that it is capable of taking away fundamental rights of Americans on a whim, as occurred when fifty years of women having the right to an abortion was trashed just because three Trump-appointed justices felt they wanted to do this and were part of a 6-3 majority.

Read the entire New York Times opinion piece to learn how bad the Florida bill is. It does more than just require paid bloggers to register with the state. 

The bill goes much further than this attempt to hobble the press. It makes it clear that the new defamation rules would also apply to any single “utterance on the internet,” which could mean a tweet or a Facebook post written by anyone, or “any one presentation to an audience,” which could include statements made at school board hearings and other public meetings.

In a direct attack on a key aspect of free expression, it says that whenever someone is accused of discriminating against others on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation, that accusation is automatically considered enough to sue for defamation.

Any person accused of bigotry based on sexual orientation or gender identity could file a defamation lawsuit and be virtually guaranteed of winning by saying the discrimination was based on personal religious or scientific beliefs. The penalty for calling someone a bigot would be a minimum of $35,000.