Salem Political Snark

Councilor Nordyke makes progress on mobile crisis unit

Thanks to Councilor Vanessa Nordyke, last night the Salem City Council approved a motion to have city staff prepare a report about a mobile crisis unit pilot project.

She was happy in a Facebook post. And humble, because the staff report that was approved was written by her.

Here's Nordyke's approved proposal.

The pilot project would be a civilian-led mobile crisis unit similar to CAHOOTS in Eugene to respond to calls for service involving persons experiencing homelessness or behavioral health crisis and would likely be for one year.

Staff is directed to consult with CAHOOTS of Eugene regarding what this pilot project could look like in our city.

Specifics to include in the staff report:

•  Identify potential community partners (such as local non-profits, medical service providers, behavior health providers, local governmental entities)

•  Identify potential funding sources (such as the $10.5 million grant we recently received from the state of Oregon)

•  Identify estimated cost of pilot project (depending type of staff chosen and other factors)

•  Identify potential service providers

•   Identify who could hire and train mobile crisis unit personnel (The city? A local nonprofit? Someone else?)

•   Identify potential types of staff (Peer support specialist, social worker, EMT, QMHP, etc.

•   Identify how a civilian-led mobile crisis unit would fit alongside existing public safety programs (such as SPD BHU, Marion County LEAD, etc)

In making this motion, I am specifically directing staff to consult with CAHOOTS of Eugene what this pilot project could look like in our city.

I understand that depending on the type of staff hired, the cost of the pilot project may vary considerably. So in creating the staff report, my expectation is that staff will propose multiple scenarios with their own price tag.  For example, I would expect having peer support specialist would be a lot cheaper than having an EMT or a registered nurse on the team.

The United Way submitted a proposal for a pilot project in the budget committee meetings earlier this year. That document estimated the pilot project costing $540,000. The United Way’s proposal may be an appropriate starting point for this proposal.

As I noted in a previous post about the mobile crisis unit pilot project, so far a stumbling block has been the decidedly lukewarm (bordering on cold) response of Police Chief Trevor Womack to this idea, which probably explains why even though the project is part of the City of Salem budget, no progress has made on it until now.

Jim Scheppke spoke about this in a public comment he submitted on Nordyke's motion.

Dear Mayor and City Council

I support the motion for a staff report on a mobile crisis unit pilot project because this will hopefully get this issue off the back burner and back on to the front burner.

I thought when the Budget Committee and the Council voted last year to budget funds in the 2021-22 budget for a mobile crisis unit that the policy was set to pursue this. Since that time nothing has happened. Grant funds that could have been added to City funds have been left on the table. Our police chief has spoken openly in the Salem Statesman Journal about his opposition to mobile response units so I can only take from that that the policy that was adopted by the appropriate policy-makers is being subverted by City staff. That’s not right.

Civilian mobile crisis units are the proven solution to serving people in crisis. They are less expensive and more effective. People in crisis don’t need to be confronted by officers with tasers and guns. We need to learn from the death of Natzeryt Viertel just last year at the hands of the police. How might that have ended differently with trained mental health specialists responding to the call about a suicidal young man? Mr. Viertel might be alive today.

Thanks to Councilor Nordyke for her leadership on this issue and for her persistence in attempting to do the right thing for Salem.

Jim Scheppke, Ward 2

Yes, this is indeed the right thing to do. I looked through some of the other public comments, which all seemed to be in support of the Nordyke motion. They can be read via attachments to the staff report. These caught my eye.

I would like to comment to the Council that I want Salem to have a CAHOOTS-style program. Many times people call 911 because there's no other realistic option to get a rapid response to a crisis... but they don't necessarily want an aggressive man with a gun to come in and start yelling and threatening people with arrest. They can't necessarily afford an ambulance ride or feel like being locked in a psych ward will be beneficial. Given the option, they might have a strong preference between police, fire, ambulance and mental crisis response: they're the ones observing the situation, the dispatcher only has the caller's words to go on.

We have police because the Executive Branch needs a way to physically enforce laws -- usually felonies that are actually arrest-worthy, since traffic, parking, health, labor and other civil penalties are rarely worth a gun on your hip -- by detaining and referring people to prosecution. The idea that police are also dogcatchers and domestic abuse prevention and a force for serving and protecting is mostly PR, and distracts from the very real work of finding and detaining murderers and thieves, or responding to active shootings.

Just as we have firefighters for fire emergencies, ambulances for medical emergencies, and National Guard or FEMA for widespread environmental emergencies, we need mental/social crisis responders who can respond to psychological or small-scale environmental emergencies.

I once watched a crying young child forcibly chased down and ripped from his mother's arms by multiple armed men because Family Court decided that his absentee father was a better provider, despite allegations of abuse. Were guns and physical violence really the best way to accomplish that? It scarred me just seeing it happen, let alone if I were that child being ripped from my only loving parent by the armed government. It seems to me a better system is possible and necessary. The presence of a gun is in itself an escalation of a situation, even if police are supposedly trained in de-escalation.

Some emergencies need response in the form of water, others in the form of morphine, or Humvees, or sometimes even guns. The giant missing gap in our system is emergencies that need response in the form of a sympathetic ear and a safe place to stay. It used to be that the town pastor would fill such roles, but with large populations a more formal, coordinated system is needed. Police can try to fill this gap, but it's not actually their core mission, and many police chiefs nationwide have said that their departments are overworked, filling in too many roles outside their training. We wouldn't dream of using the National Guard as long- term hospital staff, so why are we as a society so eager to use police as social workers? A separate, independent, care-oriented department should be on 911 speed dial so that the right response is possible, separate from the Police Chief's responsibility to enforcing laws and prosecuting crim

Will Bradley, District 1

------------------------------------------------------------

I am writing in support of the motion for a staff report on a mobile crisis unit pilot project. I hope that the outcome of the staff report will result in the creation of a mobile crisis unit support team, similar to Cahoots in Eugene, Oregon.

I lived in Eugene for over 30 years, and saw the good that the Cahoots team accomplished, time and time again. Their teams of medical and behavioral professionals were able to attend to the needs of clients in the community, freeing the Eugene Police Department to deal with other more critical and violent issues. The Cahoots teams had a solid reputation in Eugene, and city officials, as well as law enforcement officials, were gratified that the Cahoots team was on call when needed, year in and year out. Money was saved as were lives.

I don't think you will be disappointed in exploring this issue further. Thank you for considering this agenda item.

Claudia Carmichael

Councilor Nordyke pushing hard for mobile crisis unit

I'm tempted to call this a cage fight between Vanessa Nordyke, Salem City Councilor, and Trevor Womack, Salem Police Chief, over the establishment of a civilian-run mobile crisis unit.

Oops. Looks like I gave in to that temptation. Nordyke looks sweet and gentle. But my advice to Womack is to throw in the towel now before you get thrashed by her.

A few days ago Nordyke announced in a Facebook post that she wants City of Salem staff to prepare a report on the feasibility of a mobile crisis unit.

Note the language: "civilian-led mobile crisis unit." Those are fighting words for Womack, who largely dismissed that notion in a December 27 Statesman Journal story about Womack's first year as police chief.

How do you see the Police Department approaching calls about community members in mental health crisis and individuals who are homeless?

I do think there is room on this continuum for a non-law enforcement response. I don't think it can come at the expense of law enforcement because there's also room for a national best practice, which already exists here: our Mobile Crisis Response Team, where we have a law enforcement officer partnered with a qualified mental health professional. We handle hundreds of calls this way successfully. 

When we talk about removing law enforcement from the situation, that removes a critical component for safety. You never want to insert a non-sworn professional staff, like a mental health provider or a medic, into a situation where there may be somebody who is a physical threat.

Across all of that, also making sure that everybody is trained with the right skills and equipment abilities to do those roles effectively. So, crisis intervention training is one thing I'm proud of, too. We've been committed to providing additional CIT training to all of our officers.

What I am concerned about is, are there other gaps in the system? So let's say that the team existed right now and it consisted of a paramedic or a medic and a social worker. There wouldn't be a lot of calls that they would relieve from police because we already screen calls; we don't necessarily go to calls where that model would respond to because we don't have time to go to those calls, anyway.  

Let's say they go and there's a person right out here that's obviously in crisis that needs some help. What are the resources I could connect them with? There are gaps in the system. Let's not create the cart before the horse. Let's make sure that if there is a team like that, that there are actually resources that they can use to improve the situation.

My answers to these questions are going to change over time as the gaps are filled. But what's optimistic is we did open some more hotel bed space. We have a navigation center the city is going to open. So we're starting to invest and fill in these gaps that are out there. And then maybe at that point, a non-law enforcement response makes more sense.

Jim Scheppke wrote a Facebook comment about what Womack said which points out that Womack is choosing to ignore a clear City Council priority -- which Nordyke is now calling him out on.

Another interesting wrinkle is that Trevor Womack has endorsed for re-election the incumbent Marion County District Attorney, Paige Clarkson, while Vanessa Nordyke applauded the effort of Spencer Todd, who is running against Clarkson, to form a mobile crisis unit.

Here's a link to the Statesman Journal opinion piece Nordyke referenced: "Look to CAHOOTS for inspiration for nonviolent emergencies."

My bet is that Nordyke will succeed with her motion at the January 10 City Council meeting, since a mobile crisis unit appears to have the support of a majority of councilors. Then it will be up to Chief Womack to decide whether to get on board the mobile crisis unit train.

I think he'd be wise to support that proposal, given that it seems to be gathering a full head of steam.

With Powers leaving, time for a more dynamic City Manager

After six years on the job, Salem's City Manager, Steve Powers, is returning to Michigan -- where he served as the Ann Arbor City Administrator for four years before coming to Oregon.

The most interesting thing about Powers' tenure as the most important City of Salem employee is how uninteresting he has been as City Manager.

Sure, the blog posts I've written about Powers include a number of times that I've criticized him or called him a liar. But that comes with the territory at City Hall. All bureaucrats make mistakes and shade the truth now and then. And Powers is very much a traditional bureaucrat.

He makes the trains run on time. Or at least he would, if Salem had trains.

As a citizen observer of Powers, I've found him likable -- in much the same way I like vanilla ice cream. A safe and dependable choice, but not exciting. I bet most people in Salem couldn't name the City Manager.

Which probably is one reason why the Mayor and City Council have viewed Powers positively. Publicly, he stays in the background, letting the elected officials take center stage on controversial issues.

Here's my problem with that.

Behind the scenes, the City Manager wields a lot of power (whether or not their last name is Powers). Salem's mayor and city councilors are unpaid volunteers. They have zero staff, and little ability to even ask questions of City of Salem employees, much less tell them what to do.

Yes, the City Council establishes policies. But the City Manager can slow walk those policies, or even work to undermine them.

A good example is how the now-dead Third Bridge was kept alive by city staff for much longer than it deserved, even after it was clear that the progressive majority on the City Council was opposed to what I liked to call the Billion Dollar Boondoggle.

So since the City Council is responsible for hiring the next City Manager, I'm hoping they choose someone who is more like a dynamic corporate CEO and less like a bureaucratic functionary. 

CEOs typically answer to a board of directors. They aren't royalty, able to do whatever they want. However, they're the public face of a corporation. They're cheerleaders for what the corporation is trying to achieve.

I readily admit that this sort of person probably isn't what many members of the City Council want in a City Manager. I also acknowledge that Salem has had some imperious City Managers -- such as Linda Norris -- who were worse than a faceless top administrator. 

My dream just is for a City Manager who can excite citizens with a tantalizing vision of what sort of city Salem could become. Prosperous. Fun. Creative. Leader in green energy. Safe bike paths everywhere. A more people-friendly downtown.

This kind of City Manager might take some attention away from elected officials.

However, if they are energetically working to implement the policy directions of the City Council, that would be a small price to pay for their dynamism and vision.

There also needs to be a shakeup of some department heads, notably Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, who should have been fired a long time ago. 

Salem Climate Action Plan: controversial and good

Tomorrow, December 6, the City Council is getting an informational report on the long-awaited Salem Climate Action Plan. No action is being taken on the plan for now, because parts of it have generated a lot of controversy. 

I see the controversy as a good thing.

If everybody was fine with the plan, there wouldn't be any controversy -- and there also wouldn't be any strong greenhouse gas-reducing actions specified in it, since those actions inevitably are going to be opposed by those doing the greenhouse gas emitting.

A call to curtail the use of natural gas in Salem is getting the most attention. I took a quick look at some of the many comments included as part of this agenda item.  It seems clear that NW Natural isn't happy with the plan, nor are builders and homeowners who believe natural gas is a wonderful thing.

Nonetheless, the plan singles out reducing natural gas use as a major factor in achieving the plan's greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Tonight I read quickly through the Climate Action Plan. I came away impressed. A tremendous amount of work and research went into preparing it. The plan is nicely laid out, well-written, clear, and filled with enough detail to keep climate change geeks happily engaged for a long time.

The Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger has followed the plan much more closely than I have. He has some cogent criticisms of it, which I basically agree with. You can read those posts by clicking on the links included in a recent post about tomorrow's City Council agenda item.

The blogger's overall assessment is nuanced and fits with how I see things.

It's hard to know exactly what is best here. The temporary goal is a strong plan. But the overall goal is emissions reduction, and it is possible that strong action with a weak plan is easier to accomplish, and that a strong plan might be vitiated politically and yield only weak action. The final goal is not to win a prize for an elegant and powerful plan.

Right on.

There's already plenty for climate change deniers and special interests to hate in the Climate Action Plan. Being too explicit about the concrete actions needed to reduce emissions in Salem could lead to a political backlash that would make those actions tougher to carry out.

What's going to be key is preserving the current progressive majority on the City Council over the many years that will be needed to implement the plan. Otherwise a conservative takeover of the council could lead to a beautiful looking plan that sits on a (metaphorical) shelf.

Another controversial action is to use downtown parking meters to reduce the use of parking spaces to about three-fourths of what's available. 

Some downtown businesses will support this. Others won't. Since downtown is thriving, on the whole, probably most businesses would survive the resistance from those who will refuse to go downtown if they have to pay for parking. 

On the plus side, putting parking meters in downtown will be a consciousness raiser -- letting drivers know that "free" parking doesn't exist. There are costs involved, including environmental costs, even if a driver is able to pull into a space and not pay anything. Maybe electric cars could be exempt from having to pay for downtown parking.

This proposal for downtown Salem is really appealing. It'd be great to have downtown more pedestrian friendly. 

I was pleased to see an action calling for the creation of an Urban Tree Commission.
And this seems like an excellent notion.

There's much more in the plan, of course. It's well worth reading, if only quickly.
Download Salem-climate-action-plan-revised-draft-2021-11

Unwise: Salem Mayor wants 60 more police officers

Of all the things that Salem needs, 60 more police officers should be way down on the priority list.

But I've been told that this is what Mayor Chuck Bennett is calling for, apparently during a recent City Council work session about the 2022 Policy Agenda.

Adding 60 officers to the force is a big deal that needs to be justified with extremely solid data and reasoning, not just because the Mayor or Chief Womack likes the idea. 

Here's a thoughtful analysis of this seemingly unwise notion that someone sent to me.

I would like to suggest that you snark on Mayor Bennett for his ridiculous support for hiring 60 more Salem Police Department officers when Salem already employs more police department employees than any other major city (over 100,000) in Oregon. Here is a spreadsheet with the latest data for 2020 from the FBI that was just released about a month ago:

Download 2020 FBI Data on Police Dept. Staffing

We do have fewer officers than other cities at 1.07 per 1,000, but that is really pretty close to the average of 1.17. If we hired 60 more that would shoot up to 1.42 which would put us at the top in that category, and far above the average.

We are not experiencing a “crime wave” in Salem (as the Mayor implied) as may be the case in other cities like Portland. We have had six murders so far this year which is about average. Here is a spreadsheet that shows some crime data through September, compared to the same period last year.

Download SPD Crime Offenses

“Crimes against persons” (mostly assaults — homeless people?) is up 30%, but property crimes are down 33% and “crimes against society” like drug offenses, DUI, and traffic violations are down 51% (thanks largely to Measure 110).

Overall, I would say the Salem Police Department workload is going down. Not up.

In Mayor Bennett’s remarks he compares the Salem Police Department to the police department in Dayton, Ohio for some strange reason. He says that they have 500 officers compared to our 200 and they are a smaller city.

I looked it up and in 2019 Dayton reported 363 officers to the FBI, not 500, so the Mayor is wrong. Their population in 2019 in the FBI data is 140,427, so the Mayor was right about that.

But I also see in 2020 FBI data that their violent crime rate is more than twice that of Salem! They reported 1,366 violent crime incidents to the FBI for 2020 vs. only 623 for Salem. So they need more cops.

This shows that crime does not correlate with population as people like to assume. Salem’s crime was significantly higher 20 years ago (true of nearly all cities) when our population was much lower. So the fact that our population is growing does not necessarily mean we need more police.

Finally, the Mayor stated that we need more police to achieve “Vision Zero” traffic fatalities which Councilor Stapleton had brought up before the Mayor’s remarks. That’s bogus.

Twentieth-century traffic enforcement with police cars staking out and chasing violators in cities has been thoroughly discredited. Some cities are starting to move away from this altogether:

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/cities-consider-taking-police-out-of-traffic-stops/600912/

Twenty-first-century traffic enforcement can be handled more cheaply and effectively with speed cameras and red light cameras. And Vision Zero is mostly about redesigning streets for lower speeds, not hiring more police. Portland has a long list of Vision Zero strategies that they are pursuing and none of them involve more police.

https://www.portland.gov/transportation/vision-zero/making-streets-safe?fbclid=IwAR2o17ygmPC_RyXp4gAEE8borH4Rx4fu8qf6bNDDR4PE4FDSp-5WWIUVq9A

Hiring 60 more officers would probably require adding at least a couple million more to the $52 million Salem Police Department budget, already about 1/3 of the entire General Fund.

The City Council needs to consider the “opportunity cost” of doing this — continued underfunding of our parks, library, city planning, code enforcement, etc. I have come to the conclusion that our new Police Chief may be a pretty brazen empire builder — much more so than his predecessor.

He already has a Cadillac police department and he wants more.

2022 Salem City Council and Mayor races get interesting

Even though we're still six months away from the May 2022 election that typically decides City Council and Mayor races (50 percent + 1 vote and you win outright, even though the election is a "primary"), things are already getting really interesting. 

The Statesman Journal has a story that describes the current state of affairs: "Salem City Council set for a shake-up in 2022. Here's who's in and who's out so far."

Tom Andersen, the Ward 2 city councilor, isn't running for re-election. He was the first progressive elected to the City Council and serves as the unofficial leader of the now six-person progressive majority on the nine-person council (eight city councilors plus the Mayor).

The Statesman Journal story says:

Councilor Tom Andersen, of Ward 2 in south-central Salem, said he will not seek re-election and will instead run as a Democrat in the primary for the newly redistricted House District 19 in the Oregon Legislature. 

The seat is currently occupied by Republican Rep. Raquel Moore-Green.

House District 19 has been a stronghold of Republicans for more than two decades, but recent districting efforts have moved the more conservative areas of Turner, Aumsville and neighbors east of Salem outside city limits into other districts. 

According to the new legislative maps, House District 19 is now comprised of neighbors in Andersen's Ward 2, South Salem and southeast Salem. 

It'll be interesting to see who files to fill Andersen's shoes. (Which should be of the bicycle variety, since Andersen is an avid cyclist.) Ward 2 leans decidedly leftward, so this City Council seat should remain progressive.

In Ward 4, Casey Kopcho has filed to run. Jackie Leung, the Ward 4 city councilor, hasn't indicated whether she intends to seek re-election. I wouldn't be surprised if Leung doesn't seek another term. She's a progressive who doesn't strike me as being all that enthused about City Council goings-on, though I could be wrong about this.

And this statement in the Statesman Journal story sort of implies that Kopcho could be Leung's hand-picked successor, since it isn't the sort of thing someone planning to run against Leung would say.

Kopcho said he aligns with many of Leung's positions and wants to bring more accountability along with a focus on homelessness, housing availability and economic recovery to the council. 

Jim Lewis, the Ward 8 city councilor, won't be running again for his West Salem seat. He's a conservative, so this would be an appealing pick-up for progressives. Micki Varney ran against Lewis in 2018 and would be a strong contender if she enters the Ward 8 race.

I suspect that Chris Hoy, a progressive, will seek re-election to his Ward 6 City Council seat. But as always is the case in politics, what's suspected often turns out otherwise.

Chuck Bennett isn't seeking another term as Mayor. He's a moderate, by and large, so a good fit for a position that is elected citywide (obviously). Salem tilts leftward, yet has a substantial number of conservative voters.

It's great that Hollie Oakes-Miller has filed to run for Mayor. She came close to beating Jose Gozalez in their 2020 Ward 5 City Council race. For some reason the progressive Salem "establishment" didn't get behind Oakes-Miller, though I did. Yet with minimal funding she did very well against Gonzalez, who is fairly conservative.

Oakes-Miller, like Bernie Sanders, doesn't shy away from using socialist to describe herself. If the Chamber of Commerce backs a conservative candidate for Mayor, debates between this person and Oakes-Miller will be hugely entertaining.

City Council struggles with managing vs. ending homelessness

Tonight the Salem City Council had a work session on its 2022 Policy Agenda.

I watched some of it, but I have a low tolerance for discussions of this sort that tend to have elected officials and staff talking at length without really coming to grips with key issues in a fashion that ordinary people can relate to.

(If you have a high tolerance for this, the work session can be viewed here.)

Of course, maybe I missed a part of the work session where city councilors did come to grips with the top priority of the City of Salem -- dealing with homelessness.

A post that appeared today on the CANDO (Central Area Neighborhood Organization) blog, "News from the Continuum," is a masterful summary of how Salem has been handling homelessness. I highly recommend it. 

In short, not as well as was planned, but better than before. The post says:

Referring back to the tally publicized last June in the "City Puts 8.1 Million Toward Salem's Sheltering Crisis" announcement, here's how things have turned out as we head into winter:

I liked how the post aptly describes a central question facing city officials is whether to prioritize managing homelessness or ending homelessness. This is sort of akin to the age-old question of whether treatment or prevention is more important in health care.

Mayor Bennett asked about "sustainability", "how long can we do this" (i.e., pay for programs that manage vs. end homelessness).  Hoy continued to defend, sans evidence, management programs as an "investment", and asserted that such programs were what "the public" wanted.  Bennett (the Mayor) said what the public wanted was for the City to "make it go away."        

I think the Mayor is right.

After many years of shuffling homeless people around Salem -- letting them sleep on downtown sidewalks, then stopping this and allowing unmanaged homeless camps in two city parks, followed by closing down those camps and doing other things, like managed camps of tiny homes -- citizens are tired of ever-changing temporary efforts to manage homelessness.

If Congress passes the Build Back Better bill, hopefully this will allow Salem to make real progress in ending homelessness in our city, rather than merely managing the problem. Of course, just as treatment and prevention both have to be part of health care, managing homelessness will be needed so long as it still exists.

Income inequality seems to be a root cause of homelessness. This obviously is too large a problem for any city or state to deal with. It's a national issue. But this shouldn't stop city officials from focusing on efforts to end homelessness in Salem. 

Tiny home camps are better than no homes at all. However, getting homeless people into real homes should be the top priority.

Crisis response team for Salem showing some life

Good news!

City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke sent me a message today about state grant money being available for a Salem mental health crisis response team similar to Eugene's highly successful CAHOOTS program. 

This comes after the crisis response effort Nordyke has been pushing for met with a setback in September, when the Marion County Board of Commissioners balked at allowing Salem to use state funds that went to counties for crisis stabilization services.

As you can read below, $10.5 million in state grant money is coming directly to Salem, so Nordyke hopes a chunk of that can be used for a crisis response team pilot project.

Hi Brian, hope you are doing well. We have a work session on the city's strategic priorities for next year on Monday. Wanted you to be aware of this.

 

It looks like the $10.5 million in state grant money that City Council just agreed to accept at our November 8 council meeting can be used for operating costs for “crisis response.”

 

Here's the fine print from the grant agreement:

 

"Recipient shall use the Grant for the purpose of a site acquisition, preparation, and temporary or permanent shelter purchase. The funds will also be used for operating costs for potential shelter sites, unsheltered site cleanup, sobering center, or crisis response." (Emphasis added.)

 

I brought up this provision in the grant agreement near the end of the last City Council meeting on November 8, after Council voted to accept the grant. The previous cost estimate we received from United Way for a mobile crisis unit was around $540,000, if memory serves.

 

The way I read this grant agreement provision is that the City can use a portion of the $10.5 million to fund a mobile crisis unit pilot project, and still have almost $10 million dollars to invest in other projects to reduce homelessness.

 

Council will consider its strategic priorities for the upcoming budgetary year FY 2022-2023 at the upcoming City Council work session on November 15. I will be urging the Council to keep a mobile crisis unit on the list of priorities for the coming year.

https://salem.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9937966&GUID=ECB9A56F-0DD1-4B20-8BE7-E01D116DA9F4 

 

Vanessa Nordyke

Salem City Council, Ward 7

City phone: (971) 707-3732

 

Hopefully a non-police program like this is in Salem's future

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.