Salem Political Snark

Salem Police Department survey has problems, like the department

The Salem Police Department wants people to take a survey about the strategic plan being developed to guide how the department operates in coming years.

I completed the survey today. And I could have completed it over and over, for as long as I wanted, because the survey allows people to respond more than once to it.

This alone makes the value of the survey dubious. 

Letting people fill out the survey multiple times makes it vulnerable to vote manipulation by vested interests -- either pro-police or anti-police -- who want to skew the results in their favored direction. 

The survey was designed using Microsoft Office. I'm a Mac user, but it was easy for me to Google "microsoft office survey multiple" and find instructions about either allowing or disallowing multiple responses.

So this is one major problem with the survey. Those responding already were going to be people especially interested in the police department. Letting them fill out the survey as many times as they want makes the results even more questionable.

Another problem is that the survey is decidedly bureaucratic. The questions don't relate to the lived experience most people have with Salem police. It's sole focus is on dry descriptions of goals and objectives, which isn't what most people care about. 

Here's a screenshot of one question, which includes my response to it.

I used to design questionnaires and surveys back in my days as a health services planner/researcher. I got to be pretty good at it. This police department survey strikes me as poorly designed. It uses management language of goals and objectives even though as noted above, this isn't how ordinary people think about policing.

Further, this particular question is way too broad to provide useful feedback.

I said this objective was very important to me because how unsheltered (homeless) people are treated by police is very important to me. Otherwise, I don't think police should be much involved in traffic safety, since red light cameras and other automated means of detecting violations are more cost-effective.

As you can see from my response to the question, I also think police shouldn't respond to calls involving a mental health crisis or any other issue that could be handled better by non-police personnel. 

Today the Statesman Journal had a story about the survey, "Salem police chief wants input to improve the department, community trust." Unfortunately, Police Chief Trevor Womack comes across as already knowing what he wants the survey to show -- a need for more police officers.

The plan is being developed based on anindependent audit conducted earlier this year, community and staff input and the chief's philosophy. Womack said he emphasizes making "data-driven decisions," balanced with "community trust-building."

The results of the audit, approved by the Salem City Council and released in March, recommended hiring more officers to adequately address homelessness and mental health calls, and to better engage with youth and diverse populations.

Womack, who was sworn in as police chief in December, said the survey results weren't surprising as many of the department's shortcomings in community policing are due to lack of staffing. 

Well, hopefully the Salem City Council will base police department staffing decisions on the sort of "data-driven" approach Chief Womack claims he wants to use.

Councilor Vanessa Nordyke spoke clearly in a recent Facebook post about the need for a crisis team to be staffed by non-police officers. This Cahoots-style program could markedly reduce the call volume handled by the police department based on data from Eugene.

Another problem is that the Statesman Journal story repeats a claim that the Salem Police Department is seriously understaffed compared to other similarly-sized cities in the Pacific Northwest. I'm assuming that the reporter got these numbers from the police department, which appear to be wrong.

The department currently has 190 sworn officers for a population of 169,580 — about 1.1 officers per 1,000 people. In 2018, the average ratio in a Pacific Northwest city similar in size to Salem was 1.6 officers per 1,000 people. 

Jim Scheppke, a retired state library director who knows how to research questions like this, sent me his response to the Statesman Journal reporter who wrote today's story about the police survey.

Ms. Barreda: I would like to request a correction to your article today about the Salem Police Department. This statement is inaccurate or at best misleading:

"In 2018, the average ratio in a Pacific Northwest city similar in size to Salem was 1.6 officers per 1,000 people.”

And the general impression given by your article that the Salem Police Department is understaffed is just not true when you consider the entire staff and not just the sworn officers.

Attached is a spreadsheet with some tables that were derived from the latest data for 2019 collected by the FBI. There is a URL at the bottom of each table where you can go to verify the data if you wish.

The first table shows staffing for all Oregon cities with populations greater than 30,000. It is sorted by total employees per 1,000. It shows that only one other Oregon city had more police department employees per 1,000 than Salem did! It is true that many of these cities had more officers per 1,000 than Salem did, but Salem’s number is comparable to similar cities like Eugene and Corvallis and it is not that far off the average.

Another table widens the scope to cities between 100,000 and 200,000 in the Pacific Northwest. Again Salem has the second highest number of total employees per 1,000. The average number of officers per 1,000 is only 1.21, not 1.6 as reported in your story, though I realize this is 2019 data and not 2018 data.

Another table widens the scope further to include cities up to 300,000 in the Pacific Northwest and again the average number of officers per 1,000 is only 1.28. Here Salem has the third highest number of total employees per 1,000.

The last table is from 2018, with cities in the Pacific Northwest between 100,000 and 300,000. It shows the average number of officers to be 1.29 per 1,000.

The number you reported in your article may have included other cities, but I don’t see how an average of 1.6 officers per 1,000 could be accurate. 

My spreadsheet also includes two smaller tables side by side that compare staffing at the SPD and that at our public library. While the SPD has the highest total staffing per 1,000 of these cities in Oregon, our library has by far the lowest! 

The reality is that the Salem Police Department, while having a slightly lower than average number of officers per 1,000 in the Pacific Northwest (1.1 compared to 1.2 or 1.3), it has among the highest number of total staff per 1,000. Your readers should know this and not be left with the false impression that the Salem Police Department is understaffed.

 

Best, Jim

If Chief Womack or one of his staff was the source for the seemingly erroneous figure of 1.6 officers per 1000 population in cities comparable in size to Salem, Womack needs to explain where he got that figure, since it doesn't match up with the statistics cited by Jim Scheppke.

Homelessness is the top concern of Salem residents

Recently the City of Salem released the results of its 2021 Community Satisfaction Survey, which is conducted annually by contacting a random sample of about 400 residents.
Download City of Salem 2021 Community Satisfaction Survey - September 2021

Not surprisingly, city officials put a positive spin on the results in their Salem Connection email blurb.

Ah, note the mention of "core City services." It's true that most people, 70%, are satisfied with city services. But that's a big drop from the 86% satisfaction in 2020. Since Covid was with us in both years, the pandemic doesn't seem to be the reason for the decline in satisfaction.

Something else is. The report's authors note that satisfaction also is down in other Oregon cities and Oregon as a whole, but we don't know if there are special circumstances in Salem causing dissatisfaction.

That decline was across all city services (the water/sewer/stormwater plus 2 is within the 5% survey margin of error).

Thus it appears that Salem residents have become more cranky in general with how things are going in Salem. And a large percentage blame the City of Salem in whole or in part. The question asked was, "All in all, would you say things in Salem are headed in the right direction, or are things off on the wrong track?"

Almost two thirds, 65%, say "wrong track," up from just 41% in 2020. Those saying "right track" dropped from 38% in 2020 to 23% in 2021. 

The survey didn't ask whether citizens specifically blame, or credit, the City Council, Mayor, or City Manager Steve Powers and other city officials for the direction Salem is headed.

Regardless, 91% say that whichever track Salem is on, this is either mainly or partially because of actions the City of Salem has taken. This is close to the 90% who said this in 2020, the big difference being an increase in those who say "mainly because of actions the City has taken" -- up from 22% in 2020 to 34% in 2021.

Even more striking is that of the 65% who consider that Salem is on the wrong track, 40% percent say this is mainly the City's fault.

This means 26% of Salem residents think Salem is on the wrong track and actions of City officials are the main reason (.65 x .40). Only a small percentage overall, 7%, absolve the City, saying that the direction Salem is going is mainly because of circumstances outside the City's control.

So what is the main concern of Salem residents? Homelessness, by a big margin. The detailed result is more interesting than the summary discussed in the report.

You can see that concern about homelessness has steadily increased from 7% in 2016 to 58% in 2021. Of course, people have different reasons for this concern. Some feel compassion for the plight of homeless people. Others focus on the ugliness of homeless camps and their effect on surrounding neighborhoods, including crime.

Whatever the reason, homelessness is by far the first thing that people in Salem think about when asked what issue is most important for the City of Salem to do something about.

Covid is the #2 concern at 8%. After that no concern was the first mention of more than 4%, though if you add together "roads, potholes, infrastructure," "traffic congestion," and "additional bridge," it could be argued that roads are on the mind of 5% of the population.

But "additional bridge" got only 1%, four people out of 400. This shows that the frenzy over the Third Bridge has virtually disappeared after the City Council voted to kill the project several years ago.

Likewise, "police reform" got exactly zero mentions, following 3% in 2020 when Black Lives Matter protests were in full swing. This goes a long way toward explaining why the City Council's efforts at police reform have been decidedly minimal. It's a big concern to a small number of people, but is the top concern of very few, maybe none.

Of course, it would be nice to know the top three concerns, say, of those who took part in the survey. Still, it appears that in next year's races for City Council and Mayor, candidates would be wise to focus on homelessness and income equality/poverty.

And obviously even if few people (1%) mention "environment" as their top concern, this doesn't mean the City of Salem should downplay the Climate Action Plan currently being developed. Some issues demand attention because of their evident importance, no matter how many people have it as a #1 concern.

The same could be said for all of the issues below, really. Each has passionate advocates. That's what politics and community involvement is all about -- allowing everybody to speak out about what concerns them, then sorting out which issues deserve the most attention.

Setback for Salem mental health crisis response team

Led by Vanessa Nordyke, last June the Salem City Council appropriated $135,000 for a mental health crisis response team similar to the CAHOOTS program that has been a big success in Eugene -- where a medic and crisis worker handle about 17% of the police department's call volume, saving about $12 million a year at a cost of about $2.1 million a year.

But now the Salem project is on life support, according to a Salem Reporter story, "Salem, United Way halt plans for mental health crisis responder program." 

The city of Salem paused its plans to start a program where mental health workers respond to some crisis calls, rather than police.

The program was intended to run through United Way of the Mid-Willamette Valley and received broad support from Salem residents who testified as the city was planning its budget for the coming year.

But city plans hinged on receiving state money that’s no longer directly available to them.

The House Behavioral Health Committee in January voted unanimously in favor of HB 2417, which would provide matching funds to cities for mobile response units through a competitive grant process.

Salem city councilor Vanessa Nordyke said a change in the bill during the legislative process required counties - no longer cities - to request a piece of the $10 million the state allocated for crisis stabilization services, and cities could in turn ask for money from their respective counties. 

“As I understand it, there is no such interest from the Marion County commissioners,” Nordyke said. 

This is unfortunate, yet sadly predictable. 

It seems clear that City of Salem officials are much less fond of the crisis team proposal than Nordyke and the progressive members of the City Council are. City Manager Steve Powers didn't include any money for this in his draft recommended budget. It got added in by the Budget Committee after citizens expressed strong support for the crisis program.

The Police Department budget is about $49 million. So the $135,000 set aside for a mental health crisis team is insultingly pitiful.

Insulting, that is, to the homeless people, suicidal people, and others in Salem who need a caring, compassionate, competent response to their distress that a medic and mental health worker would provide, rather than sending police officers out who aren't trained to deal with those sorts of crises and often make them worse rather than better.

Now, I understand that Nordyke and others pushing for a Salem version of the CAHOOTS program had to accept whatever pittances they could get out of the $146 million City of Salem General Fund budget. 

It's just irritating that chances for the program to get off the ground now rest on the three Republican members of the Marion County Board of Commissioners deigning to send Salem the county's share of the $10 million in state funds for crisis stabilization services.

Almost certainly that will happen, like, never. 

Councilor Nordyke is a persuasive advocate for a Salem crisis response team. But she's a progressive trying to get money from the very conservative Board of Commissioners, who undoubtedly view this proposal as a way to undercut traditional law enforcement.

Which, in a way, it is. And that's a good thing. 

This isn't an attempt to totally defund the police. It's a small, but important, step toward redefining what the Salem Police Department should be doing. Or rather, not doing. As noted above, in 2017 Eugene's CAHOOTS program was able to deal with 17% of the Police Department's call volume.

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

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

There's simply no reason to have police officers dealing with problems that can be handled more competently and less expensively by a crisis response team. However, likely the Marion County commissioners never will admit this, so funds for a Salem program need to be sought elsewhere.

Oh, here's an idea! How about we look in the $49 million budget for the Salem Police Department and find a few hundred thousand dollars by, say, leaving a few police officer positions vacant for the next year or so.

Jim Scheppke, citizen activist and retired librarian who knows how to research things like this, recently sent me a spreadsheet showing Salem crime statistics for the first seven months of 2020 and 2021, using Oregon State Police data.

Reported offenses are down 9%. One reason is that Drug/Narcotic offenses are down 68%, probably mostly or entirely because Oregon has decriminalized possession of all but large amounts of drugs.

This points to something obvious, but frequently forgotten: crime isn't like gravity, an immutable law of nature. It's a social construct. Redefine what "crime" means and you change the role of police departments.

Likewise, a mental health crisis doesn't need to be handled by a police officer.

This is just something our society has gotten used to. Since it doesn't make sense for this to happen, Salem should unapologetically say, "Police Department, we still need you to deal with serious crimes, but not for handling problems that don't require a police officer response."

Here's how I put it in a June 2020 post, "City Council should cut budget of Salem Police Department." 

Most people, including me, who favor "Defund the police" aren't calling for no police at all. We just believe there is plenty of room to reduce the amount of taxpayer money that is going into the budgets of police departments.

The first step toward doing this is getting away from the indefensible notion that police are so special, taking a close look at what they do and how they do it shouldn't happen.

Actually, and obviously, police officers are just people.

Their job can be difficult. So are almost all jobs. Their job can be dangerous. So are lots of other jobs. There's no reason to morally elevate police over other professions that also are important to society just because they generally carry a gun in this country.

With that first step out of the way, we can move toward considering the "why" and "how" questions that are basic to budgetary decisions in both the public and private sectors. 

Why is this program or policy important? Why is it valued? How are those goals best achieved? How could things be done more effectively and efficiently? 

City Council needs to strengthen Climate Action Plan

I admire how the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger told it like it is in a recent post about the Salem Climate Action Plan that's up for discussion by the City Council on Monday.

This is a devastating criticism from someone who knows what he's talking about. The Breakfast on Bikes blogger has followed progress on the Climate Action Plan much more closely than I have, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions has been a longtime crusade for him.

So when he says it's a dud, the City Council needs to wake up and pay attention. There's still time to alter the plan to be a non-dud. But only if the blogger's critique is taken seriously. I urge you to read the entire blog post. Here's some excerpts.

If the plan is going to be at all serious, more than a Potemkin plan for show, it's clear that Council needs to stage an intervention and redirect the planning process to ensure the plan is reasonably likely to meet the goals.

Principals and an Enthusiasm Gap?

One of the biggest problems with the Climate Action Plan process has been demonstrated recently. The principal City planners don't appear to believe in it. When Staff have been given the opportunity to lean into the plan, they leaned away. They may say "climate matters," but their actions show they may not actually believe this.

In one case, when City Staff had a direct opportunity to coordinate and integrate climate planning with other formal planning activities, they not only passed on that, they acted as if climate didn't matter and even hindered other, more important activities.

...Separately, in a Salem Reporter article on climate, the other principal City planner had every opportunity to say, "here are the most important things we can do to reduce emissions," and instead they said we "need to build more resiliency." We need to endure and adapt to the climate emergency, not prevent its worst excesses, they appear to think.

...Nowhere Near a Plan for 50% Reduction by 2035

So as we near the end of this process for a Climate Action Plan, it turns out we are far from a plan. We have wishes and hopes only.

...Council should step in and give stronger direction so that we have a plan with reasonable expectations for success.

On Monday City Councilors should grill staff and consultants about why the Climate Action Plan doesn't come close to meeting the greenhouse gas emission goals set by the council, and why there's an undue emphasis on resiliency as global warming ravages the planet, rather than on reducing Salem's contributions to global warming.

Here's how I put it in a December 2020 blog post, "Salem Climate Action Plan is going in wrong direction." Sadly, there hasn't been a change in direction. 

Very disappointing. But not surprising.

City of Salem staff have a long history of ignoring what the City Council and citizens want, instead substituting their own bad ideas for good ones.

So here we go again...

The City Council wants a Salem Climate Action Plan to specify how we're doing to do our part in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions that are literally cooking our planet. Recently these goals were approved by the council.

By 2035, Salem’s greenhouse gas emissions shall be reduced to 50% of the citywide greenhouse gas emissions for the baseline year of 2016, and by 2050, Salem should be carbon neutral.

OK. One would think that the Climate Action Plan process would be focused on how these goals are to be achieved.

But whoever the proverbial "One" is, they will be shocked to find that so far, what's being talked about is how Salem should deal with the nasty effects of climate change, not how the city's carbon footprint can be reduced.

I don't know who is responsible for this fiasco, but the Climate Action Plan needs to get back on track as soon as possible. It's astounding that the current "envisioning" exercise is for people to say how Salem can be resilient by 2050, not how Salem can be carbon neutral by 2050.

This is a major test for the 6-3 progressive majority on the City Council.

It's one thing for them to let city staff have their way on less important issues. It's a whole other thing if the six progressives allow the Climate Action Plan to fail at achieving the greenhouse gas emission goals set by the Council. 

Because, you know, it's just the fate of human civilization that's at stake here.

Otherwise, I guess, no big deal if city staff and the hired consultants want to foist a "business as usual" Climate Action Plan onto the citizenry, assuming an acquiescent City Council will go along with it. Hopefully this won't happen at Monday's work session.

Salem Climate Action Plan lacks urgency

When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there's no time to waste.

Everything I read about global warming is scary. The Earth's climate is changing for the worse considerably faster than scientists expected as little as a few years ago. 

So everybody -- nations, states, cities, government, businesses, individuals -- we all have to do our part to keep our one and only planet habitable for humans and other life forms. 

This month USA Today had a story, "Local climate plans a key to progress." 
Download Local climate plans a key to progress - USA TODAY

Over the past three decades, more than 600 local governments across the United States adopted their own climate action plans setting greenhouse gas reduction targets. These pledges were in addition to America’s commitment to the 2015 Paris Agreement, an international treaty signed by nearly 200 nations to limit the impact of climate change.

But experts now say many of those cities’ plans were aspirational at best. Now they must work harder if they’re going to curb the warming trend.

...A small window of opportunity remains for local governments to get serious about curbing climate change, according to the IPCC report. But, to achieve any kind of major corrective action, emissions must be slashed by the end of the decade.

The pressure is on to limit emissions faster at every level, said Mark Muro, a senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

Cities can play a key role in the nation’s ability to cut greenhouse gas, but more need to adopt action plans, Muro said, and those that have “need to deliver on their promises and tighten them.”

“Within this decade we have to make a sharp turn,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Yet with disturbing regularity I hear people say, "What's the point in Salem having a Climate Action Plan, since we account for such a small percentage of global emissions?"

That's a ridiculous argument. If every nation, state, and city in the world followed that logic, nobody would do anything, since each entity generates a relatively small share of planetary greenhouse gases. 

Here in Salem, we need to do our part.

Recognizing this, 350 Salem OR pushed the City Council to allocate funds for a Salem Climate Action Plan. As noted in my December 2020 post, Salem Climate Action Plan is going in wrong direction, the goals established by the City Council match what experts say is needed to fight global warming. 

The City Council wants a Salem Climate Action Plan to specify how we're doing to do our part in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions that are literally cooking our planet. Recently these goals were approved by the council.

By 2035, Salem’s greenhouse gas emissions shall be reduced to 50% of the citywide greenhouse gas emissions for the baseline year of 2016, and by 2050, Salem should be carbon neutral.

OK. One would think that the Climate Action Plan process would be focused on how these goals are to be achieved.

That's the main problem evident in the Climate Action Plan nine months ago, and it still is the main problem today. The project team isn't serious enough about coming up with strategies to reduce Salem's greenhouse gas emissions, most of which come from transportation.

So if the plan doesn't mandate significant reductions in driving fossil-fuel-powered cars and trucks, there's no way Salem will be able to meet the goals set by the City Council. 

Yet the title of an August 17 Salem Breakfast on Bikes post, Draft Strategies for Salem Climate Action Plan Still Evade the Heart of the Matter, says it all. 

We still haven't seen even a basic swag at charting effectiveness and cost. Not to mention any modeling showing analytically that a 50% reduction by 2035 is plausible under this current proposal.

This list as we have it is mainly symbolic, not oriented to actual reductions.

So it is hard to look at the list and take a very positive first impression from it. It looks instead like it continues to evade the heart of things and is not positioning Salem for success on a 50% reduction by 2035.

Geez. It isn't as if we don't have plenty of evidence that global warming is a huge threat to Salem.

Last year gigantic wildfires turned our air so smoky the reddish sky was dark at noon. This year a heat wave smashed all-time temperature records, with Salem recording a sizzling 117 degrees, the same as the record high in Las Vegas.

Yesterday a Drought Status Update for the Pacific Northwest was issued. The tweet that brought the report to my attention had some disturbing facts. 

Hopefully the draft Salem Climate Action plan will be altered to reflect the seriousness of our global warming situation.

We can't afford to screw around with bureaucratic half-steps and cosmetic gestures that won't markedly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. 

"Slow walking" aptly describes what Salem city officials do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sure sounds like slow-walking to me.

Salem's City Manager ignores calls for a fireworks ban

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

Salem's homeless need Biden's infrastructure plan

Whenever I read about Salem's homeless problem, I feel way more sympathetic toward city officials and the City Council than I usually do.

There's simply no easy answers. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Today's excellent story by Whitney Woodworth in the Statesman Journal lays out the "Mission Impossible" facing city leaders. 

After more than a year, Salem officials are poised to end sanctioned camping for those living in Wallace Marine and Cascades Gateway parks starting June 1.

But the problem that has plagued the city for years persists — there are not enough shelter beds, transitional housing or organized campsites to house the hundreds of people sleeping outside. 

The plan is not to forcefully evict everyone from the parks come Tuesday but to slowly, over time, connect campers with resources as new shelter beds and housing options are added and then to clean up the emptied sections of the park. 

Salem City Council voted unanimously Monday, with one councilor absent, to rescind the allowance for camping at the two parks and begin a slow rollback of the program.

Mass evictions and sweeps are not expected due to legal restrictions, lack of alternative shelters and officials' desire to not push people into camping on sidewalks downtown.

What the Salem City Council is trying to do makes sense, but probably it will end up irritating all of those involved in homeless issues.

-- Homeless people won't like being told to leave city parks, even though this will happen gradually.

-- Those who live near the Cascades Gateway and Wallace Marine parks won't like homeless camps remaining in them for the foreseeable future.

-- Advocates for the homeless won't like how few shelter/housing options exist for them in Salem.

-- Users of the parks currently sheltering homeless people won't like the destruction of public property by some of those in the camps.

This seems to be one of those social problems where giving one group what it wants leads to an unbalanced approach that really irks other involved groups.

So policymakers end up displeasing everybody to some extent, because that's the only viable option given available resources.

What's the solution? Increase the resources.

Given City of Salem budget limitations, it's unlikely that a lot of money for the homeless is going to be available locally, especially since city officials face a big bill to repair the damage caused to Wallace Marine and Cascades Gateway parks by the camps.

Getting big bucks from the State of Oregon also seems like a long shot. There's too many competing needs, and state government can't run a budget deficit.

That leaves the federal government. 

President Biden's several trillion dollar infrastructure plan, the American Jobs Act, contains many billions for affordable housing and other measures that could help homeless people. 

A piece called "Can Biden End Homelessness?" is cautiously optimistic. 

Last week, Biden’s American Jobs Act included $213 billion for affordable housing. This will produce or renovate one million affordable housing units and 500,000 homes for low/middle income home buyers. This money is on top of the $27.5 billion in emergency rental aid included in the American Rescue Plan.

Many of us have long argued that housing is as much part of “infrastructure” as roads and bridges. Now we have a president who agrees.

Thanks to pressure from activists, Biden’s housing platform also called for “providing Section 8 housing vouchers to every eligible family so that no one has to pay more than 30% of their income for rental housing.” Currently, nearly 75% of households eligible for Section 8 rental assistance do not receive it.

We finally have a president committed to ending widespread homelessness. And a grassroots housing movement to provide political support. Biden’s budget plans are not perfect; advocates sought nearly double the $40 billion allocated for public housing renovation– but it’s light years beyond what any prior president has proposed.

Federal funding is essential for ending homelessness.  Now the key question is: Will cities open neighborhoods to ensure housing is available for the unhoused?

Well, my understanding is that the Oregon legislature already has mandated that cities relax zoning rules to allow multifamily housing in all residential areas, including single family neighborhoods. That's a step in the right direction.

And the City of Salem is engaged in a planning process aimed at revising the Comprehensive Plan that guides future development. That's another potential step in the right direction.

These steps, along with others, just need federal dollars to make them effective ways of markedly reducing Salem's homeless population. Hopefully the American Jobs Act will be approved by Congress this year, with or without Republican support.

City Manager gives poor excuse for permitless Proud Boys rally

Ten days after the May 1 gun rally at Riverfront Park where gun-toting Proud Boys threatened citizens and journalists with expulsion from the park, city officials keep changing their story about why a permit wasn't required for the rally.

As I said in "Typogate" adds a twist to Proud Boys rally, at first City Councilor Tom Andersen was told that a typo on the city web site caused a page to say that May 1 was the date permits would be required for events in city parks, since a missing "3" would have made the date May 31.

But I pointed out in that blog post that on March 27 the web page had changed from saying "Due to COVID-19, parks and other City facilities are not available for reservation" to "Due to COVID-19, parks and other city facilities are not available for reservation through April 30, 2021. Reservations are being accepted for outdoor events in parks occurring May 1, 2021 or after."

So that did away with the typo excuse, since in addition to saying that reservations were required as of May 1, the page said that the open use/no reservation period ended April 30. Hard to see how someone could accidentally type "April 30" when they meant "May 30."

At yesterday's City Council meeting, Councilor Andersen asked City Manager Steve Powers to discuss the confusion over whether the May 1 Proud Boys gun rally should have been required to have a permit.

I made a transcript of the Andersen-Powers exchange from a video. Here's the transcript. The video follows. I consider Powers's explanation to be weak, bordering on unbelievable, for reasons I'll explain below.

City Councilor Tom Andersen: I want to ask a question, and then I’ll have some comments afterwards, probably a little bit of both. 

Director Fernandez specifically referred to the incident that happened on May 1. And I can’t speak for Councilor Nordyke, but that may have something to do with the genesis of her motion.

There’s been some confusion in the community about the date that permits were to be reinstituted.

There was a city web site page that said permits needed to be applied for and would issue on May 1 and after. But I have been told by city staff that permits would take place on May 31 and after.

And that’s created a whole lot of confusion around the May 1 event because there are people who say look at the city web site. It says you’ve got to have permits on May 1.

And there wasn’t a permit for the circus that happened there on May 1. I’d like City Manager Powers, if you would, to respond and then I’ll have some other comments.

City Manager Steve Powers: There never was any intention for permits to start before Memorial Day. That web page, that section of the web page that’s been referred to, it was incorrect and frankly also poorly worded before it was corrected.

But in my update reports to you, available publicly, information that staff would share with people inquiring, to respond to an earlier question, yes, we are getting inquiries, people requesting dates to reserve, and in those conversations with staff and with individuals, it was always no earlier than May 31.

Now I do want to emphasize, no earlier than May 31. Part of the review was certainly based upon feedback from councilors regarding we need to look at resuming permits.

It was also based frankly on the Iron Man being interested in Salem, a significant boost to our community. And it was based upon at that time what seemed to be a positive, in a good way, trend with the disease.

That was before Polk and Marion slipped back into extreme risk, which fortunately we’re now back into high risk. This is still very much a moving target, and I think the key will be that Covid compliance, those safety plans for public events, that will be critical for anyone that is reserving our parks or a portion of a park for a public event.

Andersen: Thank you Mr. City Manager. This just points out to me how unfortunate this was, because staff was operating under the assumption that permits wouldn’t happen until May 31 and beyond, but the web site said May 1. 

And there are people in the community rightfully concerned about no permit for what happened on May 1, even though the web site said that.

This is the video I used to make the transcript.

This is my critique of what City Manager Powers said. I'll phrase my criticisms in the form of questions that I'll email to Powers for his response.

(1) You claim there never was any intention for permits to start before Memorial Day, May 31. Yet according to the Internet Archive Way Back Machine, on March 27, 2021 the City of Salem "Reserve a City Facility or Park" web page changed to say that the open use period would end on April 30, with reservations required as of May 1.

Web pages don't change by themselves. Someone edited the page.

I'm assuming this someone received an order to change the page from a supervisor or higher-up. Who issued that order? Knowing this person's name will go a long way toward learning whether there truly was an intention for permits to start before May 31.

(2) You claim that the web page was poorly worded before it was corrected. Comparing the current page and the page as it was from March 27 to April 30, the wording is almost exactly the same aside from the different dates. 

What did you mean by "poorly worded"? Also, who is responsible for the content of the "Reserve a City Facility or Park" web page? Obviously this could be the same person I asked the name for in question (1) above.

(3) In your response to Councilor Andersen you seemed to say that city staff responded to inquiries about park reservations by saying the date permits were needed was May 31. Since the city web page said May 1 for over a month, March 27 - April 30, it's hard to believe that no one ever said something like, "I saw on your web site that reservations are needed after May 1."

Are you claiming that no City of Salem employee noticed that the web site said the open use period ended April 30 for the month-plus that language was on the page in question? 

(4) Since the supposed May 1 error was on the city web site from March 27 to April 30, who made the decision to change the web page to say "May 31" on the day before the May 1 Proud Boys gun rally?

Hopefully you can understand how suspicious this looks, since social media posts about the upcoming rally were noting the lack of a permit for the rally, given that the city web site was saying that a permit was needed for park events on May 1 and after.

Then, after the May 1 date had been on the city web page for over a month, the date suddenly changes the day before the rally. Knowing who authorized the change to May 31 will help citizens understand why this was done on April 30.

(5) In your response to Councilor Andersen you imply that citizens shouldn't trust what they find on the City of Salem web site, but rather rely on statements you make at City Council meetings. Do you actually believe this? 

I ask because few people watch City Council meetings, and even fewer accurately remember what happens at them. By contrast, hugely more people use the City of Salem web site to learn city policies and obtain other useful information. 

Yet you made no apology for the web site saying something different from what you reportedly were stating in public meetings. 

In fact, your response made it seem as if the web site saying May 1 was something that happened through a random quantum fluctuation or something -- an accident that no one should have taken seriously, since they should listen to what the City Manager says, not what the City of Salem web site states.

Derek Chauvin conviction just small step toward police reform

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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