Salem Political Snark

City of Salem Community Report has pluses and minuses

First off, it's great that City officials have released a 2018 report on how the City of Salem is making progress on goals in the recently adopted Strategic Plan. 
Download 2018-annual-community-report

The report is nicely designed, attractive and clear. It's easy to read. And it reassures citizens that the folks at City Hall have some clear direction in regards to how Salem needs to change for the better.

I've only given the report a quick read, but wanted to share my first impressions of the 2018 Annual Community Report.

The high-level goals in the Strategic Plan strike me as pleasantly vacuous. They're written in bland bureaucratese. It's hard to argue with them. It's also hard to find much meaning in them. To me, a goal should both indicate a path taken, as well as reflect a path not taken.

Just about every city in the country could have this Vision, Mission, and Values. There's nothing here that makes me go, "Wow! It's great that Salem is choosing this unique way forward!" Plus, the grammar of the Vision statement is pretty bad. How could the economy and environment not be open to all? Seems like "that is open to all" should have followed "A safe and livable capital city..."

And again, who wants an unsafe and unlivable capital city? Platitudes have their place, I guess, but they're also pretty much useless in any practical sense.

The obligatory photo of the Mayor and eight city councilors followed the Accessibility value statement (shown above) that Salem is "open and inclusive." OK, but the people who currently lead City Hall are all white, and seven out of nine are male. Next year newly elected councilor Jackie Leung will replace Steve McCoid, so that will bring a bit more inclusivity to the City Council.

It's nice to show this breakdown in the report. What it shows is that most money spent by the City of Salem goes to the police and fire departments and utilities/transportation (transportation meaning roads, almost entirely). Is this what citizens want? Maybe. But if efficiencies are desired in how public dollars are spent, obviously these are the areas to look at first.

People love the Salem Public Library and City parks, by and large. Affordable housing and homeless services, not nearly as much. Not surprising. It just shows that whatever City officials are doing in these areas, more needs to be done. 

A shorter way of describing this section would have been "Things are falling apart and we don't have money to fix them, much less give citizens additional good stuff that they want. So taxpayers are going to need to fork out more money."

I searched the report for every mention of "bicycle." There was exactly one. Here it is. LED lamps provide good lighting for bicycles, along with cars and pedestrians. Whoopee.

Of course, that assumes it is safe and easy to read a bicycle in Salem, which it isn't. The absence of any mention of bike paths or dedicated multiuse paths shows how autocentric City of Salem policies are. We're way behind other cities in Oregon in this regard.

Regarding biking in Salem, it makes no sense to lump walking and biking together. It's easy to walk on a sidewalk in Salem. At least, in areas that have sidewalks. But it isn't easy to bike, unless you're a young fearless Spandex-clad rider willing and able to mix it up with cars on a "bike lane" that consists of just a painted line on a busy street.

Today the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger wrote a post about how Salem is falling farther behind other cities when it comes to bicycling. Excerpt:

Bicycling Magazine today published their list of the top 50 cities for bicycling, and Salem fell off of it.

Salem has declined steadily in the ratings over the last decade:

19th in 2010

22nd in 2012

38th in 2014

47th in 2016

Portland has declined also, to sit at #5, and Eugene climbed from #18 to sit at #7.

...In any case, Salem's previous spots in the top 50 were probably overstated, but the trend is on point: Relative to other cities, Salem is falling behind and only weakly dedicated to improving riding conditions. New facilities like the Minto Bridge and Geer Park are great, but they are not fully connected into a comprehensive system of bike transport.

Just getting the Winter-Maple Greenway completed is a slog, and there is no plan yet for a successor, second Greenway. The Union Street bikeway/greenway/whateverway remains fragmentary; while its funding is in place, construction and completion is a few years off. Salem also did not renew their LAB Bicycle-Friendly Community rating.

On discrete projects some cheerleading is plausible, but overall the system is not keeping pace.

Lastly, these figures show a basic yin and yang of living in Salem. It costs less to buy a house here, compared to other Oregon cities. Yay! But people in Salem have a median household income that's 15% below the state average. Boo!  

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. 

Conservative City Council hearts all aflutter about taking a stand on ballot measures

Oh, my, the very thought of viewing the Salem City Council as, gasp, political, seemed to make the three remaining conservative councilors dab their feverish brows with tidy white handkerchiefs, given the shock to their delicate psyches that Tom Andersen and other progressive councilors wanted to take a stand against Measure 105, which would repeal Oregon's sanctuary state law.

Not having watched last night's council meeting, I base my hearts all aflutter conclusion on a Statesman Journal story, "Tensions flare as Salem City Council takes stand on sanctuary state ballot measure."

Salem city councilors voted 6-3 to oppose a November ballot measure that would repeal Oregon's sanctuary state law — but not before heatedly debating whether nonpartisan, city officials should take any stand on statewide ballot measures.

...In an interview outside council chambers, Salem Police Chief Jerry Moore said repealing the law would have a "chilling" effect on many community members reporting crimes and other issues to the police.

Before Monday's vote, however, Council [sic] Brad Nanke said, "To my knowledge, we have never taken a position on a ballot measure."

...Councilor Jim Lewis said he could not vote in favor of the proposed positions. "I don't believe this agenda item should even be on the council's table tonight," he said. "I think Councilor Nanke spoke to that well."

...Councilor Steve McCoid called himself "absolutely opposed personally to 105."

"I'll vote no on 105. I'll probably contribute money to the campaign to defeat 105," he said.

Still, McCoid said, it's inappropriate for the council to take these types of positions. He pointed to the fact that council posts are nonpartisan, neither Republican nor Democrat.

"When you start taking political positions as a City Council, in effect, you're starting to lobby people for one position or the other," he said. "I don't think that's what we're here to do. We're here to work and run the city. This is setting a bad precedent."

This, of course, is the same Salem City Council whose liberal members were targeted for extinction by the Chamber of Commerce and other conservative members of the Powers That Be in the early 2000's, after the Mayor's office and a majority of council seats had been filled by left-leaning citizens. 

And this is the same City Council whose last six newly-elected members have been solidly progressive, with five of the six having gotten endorsements from Progressive Salem, a political action group whose goal was, and is, to wrench the reins of local power out of the hands of conservatives.

So I suspect that a main reason councilors Nanke, Lewis, and McCoid were so against the very idea of the City Council taking a stand on statewide ballot measures was that they knew they were on the short side of a 6-3 vote on the sanctuary city measure. 

The City Council is non-partisan only because a "D" or "R" doesn't appear next to candidates running for mayor or a council seat.  Maybe city councils in small towns manage to keep partisan politics in the background, but that certainly hasn't been the case here in Salem.

Thus it was totally appropriate for the City Council to weigh in on a ballot measure that would affect how policing is conducted in Salem.

This is the state capital, Oregon's second or third largest city, depending on the latest population estimate that gives either Eugene or Salem bragging rights. Salem is a political town. It makes sense for the City Council to take stands on statewide, or even national, issues that affect our area.

Will Alex Jones follow Gator & Denise into Salem talk show oblivion?

Salem is a liberal-leaning city. But local radio stations, with the notable exception of KMUZ, tend to tilt decidedly rightward.

KSLM and KYKN seem determined to compete on who can air the most conservative craziness, as I blogged about last April in "KSLM is trying to out-right-wing-wacko KYKN."

A show featuring two local conservative commentators, Gator Gaynor and Denise Nanke (wife of Salem City Councilor Brad Nanke) has disappeared from the KYKN lineup. I emailed KYKN management, asking why this happened, but never got a response.

It could have had something to do with Gaynor and Nanke mocking the Parkland, Florida high school shooting survivors. And maybe the Capitol Auto Group cancelling its sponsorship of their show the month following the mocking made KYKN give them the heave-ho. 

But I don't know for sure. Which is something rarely heard on right-wing talk radio, I don't know, because conspiracy theories abound on national programs such as the Alex Jones -- Infowars show on KSLM weekdays, 9 am to 12 pm. 

Jones has been in the news even more than usual lately. Facebook, Apple, You Tube, and Spotify all have banned Infowars content from their platforms on the ground that Alex Jones promotes hate speech. The Vox story says:

Jones and his various sites are leading purveyors of violent and sometimes racist (and anti-Semitic) conspiracy theories. The tech companies say they blocked Infowars not because of the conspiracy theories, but because, in Spotify’s words, Infowars “expressly and principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics.”

Here in Salem there have been calls for KSLM to dump Alex Jones. Last month Salem Weekly drew attention to local right-wing shows in a story, "City and school district sponsor right-wing talk radio."

When right-wing pundit Laura Ingraham mocked a Parkland shooting survivor who was speaking out against gun violence she lost dozens of sponsors on her Fox television and syndicated radio show. Two that she didn’t lose were the City of Salem’s Center 50+ and the Salem-Keizer School District.

Both still appear as “Sponsors” of Ingraham’s show and the other far-right radio talk shows on local station KSLM.

Also sponsored by our City and School District is Alex Jones, who, like Ingraham mocked Parkland student David Hogg, calling him a “crisis actor.” Jones is being sued by parents of murdered Sandy Hook Elementary students for claiming on his radio show that the massacre was faked.

After Facebook and other social media platforms took actions to curb Alex Jones' reach, local activist Jim Scheppke called for the City of Salem and Salem-Keizer School District to stop advertising on KSLM. His August 6 Facebook post said:

Alex Jones was banned from most of social media today for "hate speech" but his radio show is still broadcast on KSLM radio M-F. KSLM is still "sponsored" by both Center 50+ (City of Salem) and the Salem-Keizer School District. When are they going to wake up and remove their sponsorship of hate radio in Salem?

Scheppke shared a screenshot of the KSLM sponsors page, which did indeed show the Center 50+ and Salem-Keizer School District as advertisers. There were a total of 55 sponsors at that time.

Now, though, KSLM only lists 48 sponsors. And the Salem-Keizer School District isn't one of them, though Center 50+ is. Of course, it's possible that some sponsors asked KSLM to take them off the web page, but are still buying advertising. 

So far the City of Salem has been holding firm on its decision to buy advertising on KSLM for the Center 50+. (The City of Salem provides 40% of the Center's budget.)

Today Alice Harman called for the City Council to pull ads from KSLM. Here's her Facebook post:

We don't have to support something that we find reprehensible. Alex Jones' show is reprehensible. Any radio station that airs it is reprehensible. Anybody that buys advertising on such a radio station is reprehensible. We don't support that.

Let's ask our City Councilors to propose a Motion to require the City to pull its funding and never again buy advertising on any station that airs hate speech. Email the Mayor and Councilors here: <[email protected]>

I agree. City of Salem officials seem to feel that because their KSLM ads aren't being targeted to be shown specifically on the Alex Jones Infowars show, somehow this makes it OK to spend taxpayer dollars for Center 50+ advertising on KSLM. 

But as Harman pointed out, KSLM has chosen to air hate speech. Every KSLM advertiser (shown above) is supporting hate speech by giving money to KSLM. 

Free speech runs both ways. The entities that advertise on KSLM are free to do this. And citizens who object to the Alex Jones hate speech show are free to take advertisers' support of KSLM into account when they decide how to spend their own money.

Hopefully City of Salem officials will realize that taxpayer funds shouldn't be used to buy ads on KSLM. If this doesn't happen, then the Salem City Council should demand that the City of Salem stop supporting hate radio. 

Email the City Council and tell them this: [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. 

How did the Salem police facility cost balloon 36% in just 18 months?

Last night the Salem City Council, meeting as the Urban Renewal Agency board, failed to ask the right questions about a massive cost overrun on the not-yet-built new police facility.

This failure was across the board. Council progressives didn't ask the right questions. Neither did the council conservatives. The Mayor didn't ask the right questions. And City of Salem staff sure didn't either.

So I'm going to present some key questions that went unasked. 

What bothered me the most about the approval of $2 million in urban renewal funds to fill a hole in the police facility budget wasn't so much the decision itself, but the failure of the Mayor and city councilors to fulfill their role as careful overseers of public funds.

Watching the proceedings via the CCTV feed from home, I couldn't believe that the slide presentation by a City staff person didn't set off alarm bells that should have led to these questions being asked.

(1) How is it that the construction budget for the police facility jumped 36% in just 18 months? As shown in the screenshot above, when the City Council decided in February 2017 to have a $61.8 million bond measure put on the May 2017 ballot, the construction budget for a 115,000 square foot facility was $42,233,000. 

But last night City staff said that the current "Actual Construction" cost for a 115,000 square foot building is $57,448,331. Again, that's a 36% jump between February 2017 and July 2018.  

UPDATE: Beaverton voters approved building a $35 million Public Safety building shortly before Salem's police facility was approved. In May 2018 a newspaper story reported that costs for the Beaverton facility have increased 17% over the past 18 months. That's about half of the jump in Salem's cost.

Further update: However, I just realized that the figure for Beaverton was an overall cost figure, not just construction costs. So the comparable percentage increase for the Salem police facility is 23% (adding soft costs to construction costs). This makes the overall Salem police facility cost increase close to the Beaverton increase, though it doesn't answer the questions below.

(2) Why is the 36% jump in construction costs so much more than inflation over the past 18 months? City staff presented several estimates of recent construction cost inflation. The image below was a small part of a larger slide, hence its fuzziness. My reading of the chart is that construction cost inflation has been about 10% since 2017, which is way less than 36%. 

(As noted on the chart, the 2017 cost index is 100, and the latest value shown is about 110.)

City staff also showed the following slide, which says that construction cost inflation has been about 6% a year recently. Over 18 months, that would make cost inflation around 9%, which also is a heck of a lot less than the 36% increase in the police facility construction cost over the last year and a half. 

Now, there might be good reasons why the Salem police facility construction costs rose 36% when general construction costs apparently rose 9-10% over the same 18-month period. But since the Mayor and city councilors chose not to ask City staff about this, I'm worried that the public won't have an answer to an important question.

(3) Why wasn't there a mention of the estimated $9.1 million earmarked for construction cost increases and contingencies? I talked about this money in a previous post.

It's perplexing that City staff didn't mention it when they were describing what was in the "soft costs" part of the police facility budget. Various items were mentioned, but not the line items for cost escalation and unforeseen contingencies.

As shown above,  the "soft costs" remain at $18,581,000, while the new construction budget has become $49,857,530 after $7,591,041 in cost reductions were found in the $57,448,331 current construction cost budget.

Most of the cost reductions came from reducing the size of the police facility from 115,000 square feet to 104,000 square feet, and eliminating a bunch of spaces in the structured parking.

The construction cost per square foot has risen from $367 in the early 2017 plan, to $479 in the current mid-2018 plan.

That's a 31% increase in the cost per square foot, which is close to the 36% increase in the construction costs for a 115,000 square foot police facility with the original amount of structured parking.

This indicates that while police facility planners may have found some construction efficiencies, these weren't major, or the construction cost per square foot wouldn't have risen by 31%.

Here's the bottom line for the police facility, based on what happened at last night's Urban Renewal meeting: 

-- The size of the building now is 9.6% smaller than the 115,000 square foot plan approved by voters in May 2017.
-- The construction cost has risen 18%, even though the building is about 10% smaller. 
-- The construction cost per square foot has risen 31%.
-- The construction cost for a 115,000 square foot building rose 36%.

As I said at the start, questions should have been raised about the discrepancy between general construction costs appearing to rise about 10% over the past 18 months, while the police facility costs rose over three times as much.

I recall that Urban Development Director Kristin Retherford said that she's heard reports of construction costs increasing 1% a month recently. OK, even if we generously assume that rapid rate of increase occurred over the entire 18 months between February 2017 and now, that's still just an approximate 18% jump in construction costs.

Yet the Salem police facility experienced a 36% increase. The question "Why?" deserves an answer. I didn't hear even that question being asked last night, much less the answer.

Everyone makes mistakes. Someone appears to have made a big mistake in estimating the cost of the police facility plan that was submitted to voters in May 2017. A 9.2% cost escalation rate was used in that plan, which seems to be quite close to the actual rate of construction cost inflation. 

Yet City officials have had to scramble to cobble together enough money to pay for a police facility that is 10% smaller than what voters approved. And now the total budget is $70,179,175 rather than $61,814,000, a 14% increase to get 10% less of a police facility.

It sure feels like something went wrong here. But that wasn't evident from the lack of critical questions from the Mayor and city councilors last night. Hopefully those questions will be asked and answered in the days ahead.

Salem progressives: Depressing national news should fire us up for local changes

Nationally, it's been a depressing week for progressives like me.

Just when I thought things couldn't get worse with 5-4 Supreme Court decisions that ratified Trump's travel ban, gave a green light to gerrymandering, and trashed public employee unions, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement today. 

That gives Trump another crack at appointing a highly conservative justice who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, thereby allowing states to make abortion illegal. Which surely would happen in many red states. Also, a compliant Supreme Court could refuse to put any check on Trump's authoritarian desires, making the United States a constitutional democracy in name only.

There's not much that can be done on the national front regarding Trump's next Supreme Court nominee. 

Sure, Democrats already are trying to get Mitch McConnell to invoke his "Merrick Garland" rule that doesn't allow a vote on a Supreme Court nominee in an election year. But the chances of that happening range from none to none.

You can bet that McConnell will pull out all the Senate stops to get Trump's Supreme Court nominee approved before Senators elected this November take their seats in January 2019. 

So that leaves lobbying semi-moderate Senators like Murkowski, Collins, Flake, and Corker to not vote for a rabidly right-wing Trump nominee who would overturn Roe v. Wade as the most feasible Democratic resistance tactic. However, Senate Republicans tend to talk about resisting Trump much more often than they actually vote against him.

Thus there's good reason for progressives to feel dismayed at how things are going at the national level right now.


With so much going wrong in Washington, D.C., this makes it more important than ever that things go right here in Salem, Oregon, and that progressives get fired up about making those changes.

I mean, of course, not right as in conservative, but right as in improving the quality of life for ordinary citizens -- as opposed to making the already cushy lifestyle of the Privileged Powers That Be even cushier. This is going to require the five progressives on the Salem City Council, a majority of the nine-member body, to exercise their influence with more vigor.

Now, I realize that local politics has a different tone than national politics.

Salem's elected officials are nominally non-partisan. The Mayor and city councilors do their best to get along with each other, even though they differ a lot politically. Gentle words are more prevalent at City Council meetings than impassioned calls-to-action.

Yet I was inspired by talk I heard on CNN and MSNBC this afternoon following Kennedy's announcement of his retirement from the Supreme Court. 

Both Republican and Democratic critics of Trump were saying that the time is past to play nice, to play by the rules, to expect that reasonableness is going to win out over authoritarianism. In other words, it's time to take the gloves off and start fighting with bare knuckles, just like Trump and his supporters have been doing since he was elected (with a clear minority of the popular vote, and by just 78,000 votes scattered over three swing states).

I realize that many people in Salem would consider that such tactics either aren't needed here at the local level, or are at odds with the "go along to get along" mentality that progressive elected officials in this town tend to embrace. Not always, but certainly to a greater degree than Salem conservatives engage in when they have the reins of power at City Hall.

I also understand the oft-heard argument that it takes time to change policies at the local level. Ordinances, rules, and regulations have to be followed until they are altered. Ditto for plans, such as the Comprehensive Plan that guides development in Salem. 

To which my progressive self replies, fueled by anger and depression at how quickly conservatives are worsening things at the national level, Salem can do better, and it needs to do so sooner rather than later. 

For example, and there are plenty more examples (affordable housing, homelessness, public transit, outreach to minorities, greenhouse gas reductions, etc. etc.)...

Salem shouldn't be OK with a giant big-box store, Costco, relocating to a residential neighborhood. 

Salem shouldn't be OK with a developer clear-cutting a 27-acre urban forest prior to asking for a subdivision to be approved that would have required a tree conservation plan if there were any trees left to plan for.

Salem shouldn't be OK with moving at glacial speed to get dedicated bike lanes built throughout the city when other towns have been able to do this in a few years, not decades. 

The more things are falling apart for progressive values at the national level, the more urgency there should be at the local level to stand up for the broad public good. Understand: I'm not calling for meanness or animosity to be directed at the 38% of Salem voters who cast a ballot for Trump in the 2016 election. 

I'm just saying that Salem is a liberal-leaninbg city, with a progressive majority on the City Council, so local policies at City Hall should be moving more rapidly in that direction than they have been.

Costco hopes to come to south Salem over neighborhood opposition

It's an all-too-familiar theme here in Salem: people feeling powerless about unwelcome development in their neighborhood that they feel is being pushed upon them by forces they can't control.

Before sharing photos of what's planned for the new shopping center where Costco will be the dominant presence, I wanted to show the most surprising aspect of the meeting. Empty chairs.

This reflects the failure of Costco Wholesale and PacTrust real estate representatives to have the guts to stand up in front of concerned neighbors and answer their questions about why it makes sense to plunk a gigantic big box store right next to a residential area where people already feel the traffic is getting unmanageable. 

Along with other people I talked to at the meeting, I figured it would start off with a presentation by Costco and PacTrust staff, then move into a Q & A session. But no, staff members simply stood by easels, passively waiting for people to talk to them.

From what I heard, and this is echoed in an excellent Statesman Journal story, "South Salem residents angered by lack of information from Costco, PacTrust officials," neighbors and other concerned citizens were expecting more than just a bunch of easels with images of the proposed development.

Here's how the story by reporter Natalie Pate starts out:

Though Costco Wholesale and PacTrust real estate officials did not officially confirm Costco is relocating to Kuebler Boulevard SE in South Salem, their statements and visual aids at a Tuesday night meeting indicated they're just waiting for city approval.

The session left local residents feeling deflated.

Costco and PacTrust officials stood by signs and mock-up designs of the proposed store at an open house event.

Area residents and members of the South Gateway Neighborhood Association were invited to ask any and all questions they had about the proposed move and dozens attended.

But residents said they left feeling unheard and their questions unanswered. 

"We got ignored; they didn't care," said long-time resident Nancy Wollslair. "They talk like it's a done deal."

Wollslair has lived in the neighborhood for 35 years. She is one of the hundreds of residents who oppose the potential Costco coming to Kuebler Boulevard SE.

It's easy to understand why neighbors are opposed to Costco relocating from the current Mission Street location.

A couple I spoke with had hoped that the shopping center would be a lot more akin to charming walkable Bridgeport Village than to a smaller version of the ghastly autocentric Keizer Station where it is virtually impossible to walk from shopping area to shopping area, given the vast parking lots.

I told them that, indeed, it's hard to imagine people in the neighborhood getting all excited about walking to Costco, then pushing a cart loaded with four gigantic boxes of paper towels back to their home. 

Regarding how the proposed Costco would look, I talked with one of their architects, noting that it must be pretty easy to design a Costco, since it is the epitome of a big box store. The image above is of the entrance, which doesn't look all that bad.


But the Boone Road street view is unattractive.

The architect did point out to me that there weren't any garish red signs on the side of the building that faces a residential area, and they're going to plant evergreens along with other vegetation to soften the very long concrete side of the building. But there's no really no way to make a big box store look like anything but what it is: a big box.

This image shows the lay of the Costco land.

The existing Salem Clinic and other building in the lower left hand corner strike me as having a large parking lot. However, you can see that Costco is going to have a gigantic parking area, which also will serve four much smaller retail buildings along Kuebler Boulevard. 

The Costco gas station, with 24 pumps, is in the upper right corner. Salem's first roundabout (we really should have more, given how well they work) is shown midway down 27th Avenue.

Regarding the ancillary retail buildings in the shopping center, my snap impression was They look exactly like every other building of that sort built in Salem during the past few years.

PacTrust has labeled each as "Coffee" or "Deli," apparently in a hope that neighbors opposed to the development can be bought off by a promise of a latte or sandwich to soothe the pain of the Costco right next door. (Forgive the shadow; I didn't want to ask the person to move just to have a shadowless photo.)

The scale of the proposed Costco is shown in this image that compares it with the current Costco on Mission Street. It is considerably larger, with more fueling stations. It's true that the proposed Costco would have four vehicle access points, but most people would reach the Costco via Keubler Boulevard, exiting either on Battle Creek Road or 27th Avenue.

So the concern of neighbors about traffic back-ups seems justified.

I listened to a neighbor ask the Costco architect about semi-truck deliveries, as she was worried about back-up beeping noise in the middle of the night. The architect said that deliveries are indeed made outside of the hours the store is open, but neighbors could ask City of Salem officials to require that more deliveries be made in the early morning, rather than late at night.

She didn't seem reassured.

Here's what happens next, according to a friend who spoke with the City planner who's working on the Costco application. The application hasn't been approved yet, but reportedly it would be a staff-level decision -- unless one or more City Council members ask that it get a hearing at a Council meeting.

Given the level of opposition to Costco, this seems likely, if not assured. I believe the planner has until July 6 to recommend approval or denial of the Costco application. Then there would be a two-week public comment period. A final decision would be made by August 1.

I don't know how an appeal of the decision would be handled -- whether by a hearings officer, the City Council, or the Land Use Board of Appeals.

As I noted at the start of this post, what's most bothersome to me about this Costco issue is how powerless neighbors feel in the face of big-money development interests. I realize this isn't new news here in Salem. For a long time developers have called the shots, and residents have had to put up with where those shots landed.

Last night I heard people talk about what could be done about this, both in regard to the current Costco proposal and long-term. Revisions to Salem Comprehensive Plan are in the works, to my understanding. Maybe these will put a halt, or at least slow down, giant shopping centers being built on the periphery of the city, to the detriment of the urban core.

A revision to the City Charter also was talked about, a subject I know next to nothing about.

I'll end by noting that someone told me that fairly recently another meeting about this development was held at the South Salem Seniors building. Reportedly about 175 concerned citizens attended, including several city councilors, Tom Andersen and Chris Hoy.

Nobody showed up from Costco or PacTrust.

This shows an unhealthy arrogance on the part of the would-be developers of the Kuebler Boulevard property. Apparently they feel that all they need to do is talk with City staff, then get their application rubber-stamped by compliant City of Salem officials. Communicating with people in the neighborhood who would have to live with a giant Costco... unnecessary.

Shameful? Yes. The way things typically are done here in Salem? Unfortunately, that's also a yes.

Lastly, anyone who wants to stay in touch with the Costco application should email the South Gateway Neighborhood Association person: [email protected] 

City Manager's performance evaluation reflected in Salem water crisis problems

Steve Powers is the Salem City Manager. The City Manager is hired with the approval of the City Council, then he or she is in charge of all other City of Salem employees.

Someone sent me a copy of Powers' January 2017 Performance Evaluation, noting that some deficiencies noted in the evaluation seemingly were reflected in how Powers has been handling the toxic algae water crisis. 

Before discussing those deficiencies, some background info.


News of Powers being hired as Salem's City Manager broke in August 2015, as I wrote about in "Salem has a new City Manager -- Steve Powers." At that time he was the City Administrator of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Since Salem has a strong City Manager/ weak Mayor and City Council form of government, Powers is taking on an important position. I'm hoping, and pretty confident, that he'll be better than our previous City Manager, Linda Norris, who left a lot to be desired.

I say "pretty confident" because a bit of Googling didn't turn up any obvious dirt on Powers.

It doesn't look like any citizen activist bloggers akin to me in Ann Arbor have been ranting about his poor performance as City Manager, like I've done with Linda Norris.

Indeed, it appears that over the past few years Powers has done a competent, though low-key, job as Salem's City Manager.

I've written very little about him, mostly because Powers tends to stay in the City Hall background, even though he has vastly more power than the Mayor and other members of the City Council when it comes to day-to-day operations of the City of Salem.

I did talk some about Powers in a June, 2017 post, "So, who's in charge at the City of Salem?"

In public, City Manager Powers comes across as quite diffident. Meaning, he doesn't speak passionately about policy issues or engage in "rah-rah" talk that could energize the citizenry. So even though Salem has a strong City Manager form of government, so far Powers hasn't lived up to his last name -- using his position as a firm lever of power to change Salem for the better.

So this gets us to the current water quality crisis. Powers and other City officials have come in for well-deserved criticism for not notifying the public right away when test results showed high levels of cyanotoxins in the Salem water system.

The only apology I've heard from Powers has been along the lines of, I'm sorry that people have lost confidence in Salem water. But lots of people also have lost confidence in the ability of City officials to manage the toxic algae problem. In part this is due to Powers' personal style.

As I noted in the above-mentioned post, Powers isn't an eloquent or passionate speaker. He searches for words, speaking so carefully it can sound like he is trying to hide something, whereas most likely this is simply the way he is used to talking in public.

His January 2017 performance evaluation says it was based on "18 written evaluations and 19 individual interviews with your direct reports, the Mayor, members of the City Council, and a small group of leaders from partner organizations."

Download StevePowersPerformanceEvaluation

Here's some excerpts from the Performance Evaluation that bear on how Powers has managed the current water crisis. I've boldfaced especially pertinent feedback to Powers, and added my own comments in red.

One area for development that you might consider is taking a more assertive stance in moving initiatives forward with a greater sense of urgency and attention to detail. You may have a tendency to under-communicate or at least communicate with less urgency or intensity that some around you might expect. Some noted that it is important to “close the loop” in communications and keep people updated on the status and progress of various issues and projects.

This seems right-on. Initially Powers and other City officials did indeed "under-communicate" with the public and failed to keep Salem residents updated on what was happening with water quality test results. 

A few respondents said they would appreciate a somewhat more assertive, higher profile posture with the [city] council on your part, specifically, speaking up sooner, keeping the council informed on issues, and offering possible decision choices and their consequences, positive and negative.

The City Council wasn't involved at all by City officials after a test showed a cyanotoxin in the tap water, with councilors learning of the Health Advisory alert only a few hours before it went out to the public.

While you have visited several neighborhood associations during your first year in Salem, it would be beneficial for you to be even more visible and engaged in the community.

The water crisis shows why this would have been desirable. I suspect relatively few people know who the City Manager is, or why his position is so important. So when the water crisis hit, there wasn't a reservoir of good will out there for him to draw on. With Mayor Bennett being on vacation overseas, Powers has become the face of City Hall, and that's a face most people in Salem aren't familiar with.

While many around you recognize your quiet approach, the tendency to listen first, and think before speaking, several said they would like to see you be a little more expansive in your communications, particularly in terms of offering more of your views on things sooner, sharing your vision, and articulating where you stand.

Salem doesn't have its own TV stations, and the Statesman Journal rarely reports on City Hall goings-on absent a big story like the current water crisis. So it's kind of tough for Powers to share his City Manager vision when there aren't many ways to communicate it other than the City of Salem Facebook page, Still, this is a valid criticism.

Bottom line: about a year and a half ago Powers got some constructive feedback on his management approach. I have no idea if he took that feedback from his Performance Evaluation to heart, or if anyone at the City of Salem helped him adjust his communication style, which was the key deficiency identified in the 2017 evaluation.

Regardless, it sure seems like Powers could benefit from some "coaching" as regards the way he communicates both with the public and other City staff. There's a lot to like about his tendency to be hands-off -- except when some hands needed to be guiding the management wheel of the City of Salem, as was the case with the water crisis. 

Salem's "10-days-until-you-get-sick" water advisory wasn't settled science

The folks at City Hall who made the indefensible decision to keep Salem residents in the dark for seven days after s sample was taken that showed high levels of a cyanotoxin in the water supply are trying to claim that a "10-day window" rule permitted this. 

In a Statesman Journal story, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez said:

City officials “hung our hat” on EPA guidelines that allow for a 10-day period to make treatment adjustments to fix the water. After 10 days, the buildup of toxins becomes more serious.

So let's take a look at how the 10-day EPA guideline was developed. It sure wasn't based on settled science, not even close. An EPA document, "2015 Drinking Water Health Advisories for Two Cyanobacterial Toxins." tells the tale.


First, the document says what Health Advisory (HA) values are, which implies what they aren't: objective facts that can be taken as solid science. Note the words "non-regulatory" and "informal."

HAs are non-regulatory values that serve as informal technical guidance to assist federal, state and local officials, and managers of public or community water systems to protect public health from contaminants.

l'm going to focus on the Health Advisory values for Cylindrospermopsin, the toxin that was first observed in the Salem water supply from a sample taken on Wednesday, May 23.

As shown below, the test result showed values almost ten times higher than the Health Advisory limit for vulnerable populations (children under six, pregnant women, others with compromised immune systems) and more than double the limit for the general adult population.

Now, those Health Advisory numbers look marvelously exact: 0.7 and 3.

So let's take a look at how they were derived. A supporting EPA document, "Drinking Water Health Advisory for the Cyanobacterial Toxin Cylindrospermopsin" explains that a single 2002 study on mice is the basis for the Health Advisory values.

Regarding humans, it is known that the cyanotoxin has nasty health effects, but it isn't known what level of the toxin produces those effects. (I've boldfaced that sentence.)

The main source of information on the toxicity of cylindrospermopsin in humans is from qualitative reports of a hepatoenteritis-like illness attributed to acute or short-term consumption of drinking water containing C. raciborskii. Symptoms reported include fever, headache, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, hepatomegaly, and kidney damage with loss of water, electrolytes and protein. No reliable data are available on the exposure levels of cylindrospermopsin that induced these effects.

Thus the Health Advisory values for a 10-day window, during which supposedly no ill effects from drinking water containing cylindrospermopsin will occur, which City officials "hung their hat on" (meaning, depended on), comes from a single study of mice, not people.

 

The first EPA document I mentioned describes what adjustments to the mice results were made so as to apply them to humans.

A 10-fold "uncertainty factor" was applied because mice are different from people. Another 10-fold uncertainty factor was applied because humans differ from other humans in how they react to toxins. And a 3-fold uncertainty factor was applied because of database deficiencies.

Combined, that resulted in a total uncertainty factor of 300 (10 times 10 times 3).

Remember: the values of .7 and 3 that resulted by applying that uncertainty factor derived from a single mouse study to humans is just a guideline. The EPA stressed that it is simply informal technical guidance for people such as City of Salem officials needing to decide whether to issue a public alert after high cylindrospermopsin levels were found in a water supply.

Obviously those values are neither solid science, nor settled science.

The uncertainty factors clearly are guesstimates. Are mice really exactly 10 times different from people? Are people really exactly 10 times different from other people? And most worrisome, is what is not known about cylindrospermopsin really three times greater than what is now known?

What if "database deficiencies" actually are much greater? Then the Health Advisory levels should have been much lower. But since no one knows what isn't known about cylindrospermopsin's toxic effects on humans, there's no way to be sure.

Bottom line: Officials with the City of Salem engaged in bureaucratic malpractice when they failed to alert the public about high levels of cyanotoxins in the drinking water when this was first known on May 26. Staff from the Oregon Health Authority didn't express an opinion on whether a health alert should have been issued, because this was up to City officials.

To name names, it was City Manager Steve Powers and Public Works Director Peter Fernandez who bore the responsibility to alert the public that high levels of toxins were found in the Salem water supply.

They failed in that responsibility. Alice Harman put it nicely on Facebook. There is NO 10-days-to-tell-us-about-it rule.

 

 

Lastly, the effect of cyanotoxins in the water supply on animals surely was significant, as most pets are considerably smaller than most people. Here's what someone concerned about their dog said in a letter to the editor in the Statesman Journal.

Just a short note to add to the outrage felt by Salem water customers with regard to the late notice (of contamination). 

While by no means anywhere near as important as the possible or potential vulnerability of Salem residents on chemotherapy and those with compromised immune systems, we, too, feel disgruntled by the very late notice. 

Our dog was diagnosed with bone cancer, has had her shoulder and leg amputated, and since February has had six chemotherapy treatments. 

Obviously, her immune system is compromised.  In fact, she cannot receive needed vaccines at this time. She began having diarrhea on Sunday or Monday of this week, (but) since receiving the notice and (our starting to use) bottled water - zero incidents! 

(Is there) further damage - who knows? 

B. Weyand
Salem