Salem Political Snark

Salem's city officials need to WAKE UP about COVID-19 danger

I'll be blunt and red flag colorful.

People are going to die if Salem's Mayor, City Manager, and City Councilors don't freaking WAKE UP about the danger COVID-19 poses to everybody in our city, but especially to those who are over 60 and those with underlying medical conditions.

With St. Patrick's Day coming up, those city officials need to be screaming from the rooftops of social media, Statesman Journal, Salem Reporter, local radio stations, and Portland TV stations that Salem residents need to stay out of bars, restaurants, and other crowded gathering places until the COVID-19 outbreak has stabilized.

Which will be a while. 

Poltico has a good story about the danger we face because of COVID-19 indifference among young people, and, I'm sure, some older people.

The nation’s top infectious diseases expert has a stern warning to young people: Don’t get complacent about statistics showing that serious coronavirus cases and fatalities are skewed toward the elderly and those with underlying health issues.

“You are not immune or safe from getting seriously ill,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked if younger Americans should be concerned about contracting the virus, which Fauci has repeatedly said is more lethal than the average flu.

...Fauci said it was critical for young people to understand that they can be a carrier for the virus and spread it without showing symptoms or feeling ill themselves.

“Even though you don't get seriously ill, you could bring it to a person who would bring it to a person that would bring it to your grandfather, your grandmother, or your elderly relative,” he argued. “That's why everybody's got to take this seriously, even the young.”

...“I would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction that we see in restaurants and in bars,” he said. “Whatever it takes to do that, that's what I would like to see.”

Well, Salem's Mayor, City Manager, and City Councilors could get off their asses and start the above-mentioned screaming from the rooftops about not congregating in crowded places like bars and restaurants where you can't stay at least six feet from other people.

This is personal for me.

My wife, Laurel, and I are over 70, as are most of our friends. Laurel has asthma, so likely would suffer more if she was infected with COVID-19, or coronavirus. The more people there are wandering around Salem who have COVID-19, even if they aren't showing symptoms, the more likely the disease will spread rapidly.

The time to work to dramatically slow the spread is NOW. So where's the leadership at the City of Salem? Very difficult to see, as a good Salem Breakfast of Bikes post talks about today. 

This weekend has seemed like it might be a critical one for reducing the transmission of the coronavirus and the incidence of full-blown COVID-19. It has been dismaying to read accounts of St. Patrick's Day weekend revelry, of long brunch lines, and of crowded airports.

Locally, the City still likely deferred too much to the State guidelines, which have seemed tentative and behind the best information from Italy, Spain, and France, even Seattle, and did not recommend or even demand stronger measures. People in Europe are the proverbial "travelers from the future," begging and imploring for us to take stronger measures before it's too late. There is increasing evidence of asymptomatic transmission, and so without large-scale testing, we should be assuming that there are many more cases here than we know about.

At this point the problem is really about community capacity and slowing transmission, since it seems likely many, perhaps even most, of us will come to be infected over the next several months.

UPDATE: This tweet expresses my feelings exactly.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interesting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe. But I doubt it. 

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

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

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

Revised sit-lie ordinance is a laudable compromise, but still flawed

Last night the Salem City Council voted 7-1 to move ahead with considering Cara Kaser's creative attempt to find a middle ground on how to deal with downtown's homeless problem. (Jim Lewis was the only no vote; Tom Andersen was out of town).

A Salem Reporter story, "Salem City Council moves ahead with sit-lie -- with some conditions," explains the essence of Kaser's approach.

The Salem City Council is moving forward with a plan to ban sitting and lying on public sidewalks — with provisions.

Councilor Cara Kaser made a motion to go ahead with the ban on Monday, Feb. 24, with a stipulation that it wouldn’t go into effect until an indoor or outdoor day facility provides shelter from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., the hours that would be regulated under the proposed ordinance.

It would also keep the ordinance from kicking people out of the downtown exclusion zone for violating the ban and requires the city to come up with a plan to provide permanent restrooms. 

This seems to be a reasonable compromise between the extremes of two groups of people who provided verbal public testimony at the February 24 council meeting.

I watched some of the testimony via CCTV's streaming of the meeting.

Quite a few downtown businesspeople were adamant that allowing the homeless to essentially live on sidewalks in the area is causing their businesses a lot of harm. Some of their employees are afraid to use the parking garages because of bad behavior by homeless individuals. And they're worried that customers are avoiding downtown.

On the other hand, many other people spoke about the need to not criminalize the homeless. They correctly pointed out that many of those living on the streets have no choice, either because of an inability to afford a place to live, or for other reasons -- such as mental health problems.

I believe Councilor Kaser said that her proposal isn't going to be liked by most of those who testified. Likely that's true, which indicates that it is an appealing middle ground. However, it still has problems. 

A Statesman Journal story, "Modified sit-lie proposal gains favor with Salem councilors, with restrictions," describes what could be the central drawback of the proposal: a lack of places for the homeless to go during the daytime when the sit-lie ordinance would prevent lying and sitting on sidewalks (with some exceptions).

Jimmy Jones, the executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, said while considerable resources are in the works, like more housing and a navigation center, the conditions suggested for the sit-lie are unlikely to be met and unlikely to be successful if achieved. 

"Even our expanded day center will not come close to meeting the need for the total unsheltered homeless population in Salem," Jones said. "There will need to be additional spaces designated. ARCHES will not be enough alone, and requiring that most of the downtown homeless be there will quickly overwhelm our capacity if there’s no place elsewhere to go."

Jones said about 1,000 people live outside in the Salem/Keizer area. Of those, 300 live in the immediate downtown area. 

He said the conditions will also be pricey. Expanding the ARCHES day center to include weekends and evenings will cost almost $1 million over their current operating budget. Even a minimal expansion, like extending to hours from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. during the week, would cost $400,000 a year. 

About 125 people visit ARCHES a day. The expansion would allow them to fit more people —"maybe 95 or so" — inside at one time. Expanded operating hours would lead to more traffic, Jones said. 

"We can handle the bulk of the folks, but having an overflow somewhere is going to be necessary," he said. 

Jones warned of creating even more "unintended consequences" like the ones seen after evictions of people living under bridges and in local parks, and a ban on camping on city property. 

When the ban was enacted, it pushed people away from established clusters of tents and tarps, like the one outside the ARCHES Project, and into new locations, like the stretch of sheltered space running along Rite Aid, T.J. Maxx and the former Nordstrom building.  

So there's numerous moving parts that need to fit together smoothly in order for a modified sit-lie ordinance to succeed. Here's some of the things that come to mind in addition to the possible lack of day centers for the homeless, as noted above by Jimmy Jones.

-- Providing a place for homeless people to store their belongings during the day.

-- Enforcing the sit-lie ordinance from 7 am to 9 pm, given that Kaser's proposal takes away the ability of police to exclude people from the downtown area if they have repeated infractions of the ordinance. 

-- Dealing with the reluctance of some homeless people to spend their day in an organized day center. This could be due to a mental health problem, or a simple preference for being on their own.

-- Ensuring that downtown businesses have the patience to continue dealing with problems caused by homeless people during what could be a lengthy period of city officials and homeless advocates figuring out how to make the revised sit-lie ordinance work.

Salem's proposed sit-lie ordinance rests on a bunch of "can'ts"

Tomorrow there's a good chance the Salem City Council will approve a citywide sit-lie ordinance that prohibits sitting and lying on public sidewalks between the hours of 7 am to 9 pm, subject to certain exceptions. 

Aimed at homeless people, obviously, this is the most recent attempt to pass a sit-lie ordinance, which so far has failed to get a majority vote from the City Council.

Mayor Chuck Bennett

Mayor Bennett really wants to have it passed this time, as a recent Salem Reporter story made clear. Here's an excerpt from "Salem Mayor pushes for 'sit-lie' in the face of increasing uproar over homeless problem downtown."

Each day Mayor Chuck Bennett opens his electronic inbox to a half dozen emails from downtown shoppers and business owners upset about the homeless people residing on sidewalks.

Feeling compelled to act, Bennett is pushing for a ban on sitting or lying on sidewalks during the day to deal with the 50 or so people camping in front of Rite Aid on Northeast Liberty Street.

He said the campers have no incentive to move on, and a new city law, recommended by both Salem Police Chief Jerry Moore and City Manager Steve Powers, would provide that.

“There are places that people can go during the day,” Bennett said, citing city parks, the library and day rooms at The ARCHES Project and Union Gospel Mission.

I believe Councilor Tom Andersen is out of the country, so Bennett needs five of the eight other members of the City Council to vote "aye" on the sit-lie ordinance. A plausible scenario is that Bennett, Jim Lewis, Brad Nanke, Cara Kaser, and Chris Hoy provide those votes.

It's a difficult decision. I looked through the public comments received so far on this agenda item. Opinions seemed split fairly evenly between those who favor the sit-lie ordinance and those who oppose it.

The way I see it, the proposed ordinance is the result of a bunch of "can'ts" -- all of which have merit, but many of them are contradictory.

Homeless people can't be allowed to drive visitors away from downtown Salem businesses.
Homeless people can't be treated like second-class citizens. 
Homeless people can't be allowed to camp on public property. 
Homeless people can't be the scapegoats of societal income inequality.
Homeless people can't litter downtown with their belongings, trash, and excrement.
Homeless people can't be shunted from place to place at the whim of city officials.
Homeless people can't be refused a safe place to sleep.

Probably there are more can'ts that i haven't thought of, and I readily admit that these brief one-liners don't capture the breadth and complexity of Salem's homeless problem. 

I share them simply because I've got a lot of sympathy for everybody involved: the homeless; social service agencies; police; downtown businesses; visitors to downtown; city staff; the City Council; those who live and work downtown. 

Seemingly there is no way to please everybody. If the City Council passes the sit-lie ordinance tomorrow, lots of people will be upset. If the City Council rejects the sit-lie ordinance, lots of other people will be upset. 

I don't know what the City Council should do. If it decides to approve the sit-lie ordinance, seemingly the current ban on homeless camps should be lifted to some extent -- such as by allowing camping in Marion Square Park, as was suggested by several people who submitted testimony on the proposed ordinance.

Obviously the homeless need some place to go between 7 am and 9 pm. If the City of Salem doesn't offer that place, the sit-lie ordinance is going to lead to more unintended consequences, and nobody wants that to happen.

Anxiety among progressives is real. Here's how I'm coping.

Don't get me wrong. It's always a good time to be a progressive leftie. But at the moment I'm not feeling much pleasurable buzz from being on the right, or better put, wisest, way of looking at the political world.

Let's count some of the reasons.

(1) Trump is emboldened following his impeachment acquittal. He's shown no sign of repentance for trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election. Aside from Senator Romney, congressional Republicans are kissing Trump's ass with disgusting relish.

(2) The Iowa caucuses were a disaster. The messed-up tally of results makes Democrats look incompetent.

(3) And the two candidates who came out on top in Iowa are Sanders, an avowed socialist, and Buttigieg, who basically has zero black support. I much prefer Buttigieg to Biden in the moderate camp, but I worry about the ability of either Sanders or Buttigieg to either beat Trump in November or bring the Democratic Party together -- a necessity for beating Trump.

(4) Trump's approval rating has shot up recently. Hopefully this is an aberration. However, his base of support certainly hasn't eroded, and it may be enlarging.

(5) Here in Oregon, the lumber trucks have arrived in Salem to once again protest the current version of the cap-and-trade bill to reduce carbon pollution so our planet remains fit for human habitation. Republicans likely will walkout like they did last session if it appears the bill has any chance of passing, dooming it for lack of a quorum.

So us progressives are in an awkward period.

Neither the candidate who can beat Trump, or the path to do so, is at all clear. Meanwhile Trump supporters and Republicans are rejoicing in Trump's State of the Union speech and the nasty in-your-face divisive remarks he made at, of all things, a Prayer Breakfast. 

Plus, Oregon Democrats seem poised to repeat the depressing spectacle of the 2019 legislative session: allow Republicans to stage a walkout without any negative consequences, after which the cap-and-trade bill will be shelved until 2021 as the Earth continues to warm dangerously.

Everybody has their own way of coping with anxiety. I don't claim that my approach to dealing with the worries I've just enumerated are any sort of universal worry-salve. These are simply some of the things I try to keep in mind when progressive nightmares haunt me.

Everything changes. No one can know what will happen in the next 24 hours, much less between now and election day in November, or now and the ending of the short Oregon legislative session in early March. Surprises are going to be plentiful. They're as likely to be progressive-friendly as the reverse. So let's enjoy surfing the wave of political change and hope we progressives don't wipe out.

Negativity is a human predilection. Most people, me included for sure, find it easier to visualize bad things happening than good things. In early human history worriers who feared that the rustle in the brush was a saber-toothed tiger fared better in the evolutionary sweepstakes than the optimists who thought it was just the wind. Thus it's psychologically likely that many or most of my political anxieties aren't going to come to pass, or will be less extreme than I expect.

Life is much grander than the latest headlines. I'm a news junkie. But often I stick the most recent issue of TIME or The New Yorker in a drawer and don't get around to reading it for weeks, or even months sometimes. Then I skip much of the issue, because what was so important then, isn't now. Other things are. And rarely do either the old things or the new things impact my daily life, which exists on a different level than national, state, or local politics.

Close to home, progress is always possible. While progressive anxieties tend to skew nationally, obviously the best ability to produce positive progressive outcomes is at the local level, right here in Salem. Yesterday I got to hear Virginia Stapleton speak about why she's running to replace retiring Ward 1 city councilor Cara Kaser. Stapleton was so sincere, eloquent, inspiring, and persuasive, listening to her raised my progressive spirits. A lot.

Virginia Stapleton

The way Democratic primaries work, Oregon is going to have little say in who the Dem presidential nominee is going to be once our May election rolls around. All we'll be able to do is passively watch other states vote (or, in the case of Iowa, screw up voting). 

But when I contributed some money to the campaigns of three progressive Salem City Council candidates about a week ago, I felt really good about playing a small role in what hopefully will be the victories of Virginia Stapleton, Vanessa Nordyke, and Trevor Phillips. 

Doing something concrete to aid local progressive causes wasn't exactly a cure for my above-mentioned anxieties about national and state politics. However, it definitely alleviated some of the symptoms. Here's links to the web sites of Stapleton, Nordyke, and Phillips if you feel like doing some healing yourself.

https://electvirginiastapleton.com
https://electvanessanordyke.com
https://electtrevorphillips.com

Peter Fernandez, Public Works Director, is failing to enforce Salem's tree ordinance

Just when I thought the wanton destruction of four valuable street trees by Daniel and Richard Gatti couldn't be more outrageous, it turns out I was wrong.

Because Michael Slater reported in a Salem Tree Advocates post on Facebook that the City of Salem's Public Works Director, Peter Fernandez, has admitted that he hasn't been requiring people who improperly remove street trees to pay for the full assessed value of the trees, as is required by a city ordinance, SRC 86.105(c).

l heartily agree both with Jim Scheppke's comment above, plus a post that Scheppke wrote on the Facebook page where Salem City Council goings-on are discussed.

lt sure does smack of favoritism. Richard Gatti has admitted that he knew he needed to get a permit before trimming the street trees on his property that borders Liberty and Superior streets. (See here and here.) Further, Gatti didn't use a licensed tree service, and he failed to tell the contractor how the trees should be trimmed. 

So the Gatti brothers knowingly destroyed four street trees that could have a total value of tens of thousands of dollars. Yet Peter Fernandez is OK with not complying with the city ordinance, shown below, that requires Daniel and Richard Gatti to pay the full appraised value of the trees that were damaged, in addition to a fine. (Boldface added for emphasis.)

Costs of restoration. Persons violating this chapter, or a permit issued hereunder, shall be responsible for restoring damaged areas in conformance with a plan approved by the Director that provides for repair of any environmental or property damage and restoration of the site. Costs of restoration shall be not less than those determined equal to the monetary value of the regulated trees removed in violation of this chapter, or permit issued hereunder, as set forth in an appraisal acceptable to the Director and based upon applicable administrative rules. Each removal of a regulated tree in violation of this chapter shall result in a separate civil fine in addition to costs of restoration.

Sure, the City Council can indeed look into modifying this portion of the tree ordinance. But it can't roll back the clock and pretend that the ordinance didn't exist when the Gatti brothers decided to ignore it and top the four trees, which is one of the worst things that can be done to a tree.

Mangled Gatti tree on Liberty Street

City Manager Steve Powers needs to overrule Peter Fernandez' outrageous decision to not enforce the city's tree ordinance and let the Gatti brothers off the hook for their willful destruction of four valuable street trees.

This, of course, is the same Peter Fernandez who made a backroom deal with Ryan Allbritton, the U.S. Bank president, to destroy five large, beautiful, healthy trees on downtown's State Street for no good reason. I was so disturbed by that travesty, I wrote a report about it, "Outrage: the true story of Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings."

To my knowledge, Fernandez never was disciplined for the shoddy way he acted back in 2013. And here he is again, looking the other way while other well-known "pillars of the community" knowingly destroy street trees. Why Fernandez still has his position is beyond me, because he sure is doing a crappy job at it.

Great idea to deal with Salem's homeless problem

A few days ago Susannn Kaltwasser asked an excellent question on a Facebook page where Salem City Council issues are discussed. 

Kaltwasser is correct. An October 2019 survey of Salem residents found that after being asked an open-ended question, 41% said that homelessness and poverty were their top concerns. Crime and drugs were mentioned by only 4%. Here's a screenshot from the survey report,

So it's perplexing that City officials want all of a proposed employee-paid payroll tax that will be on the May 2020 ballot to go to public safety. Here's a information sheet about the payroll tax and operations fee (already passed by the City Council). 
Download City Revenue Fact Sheet

Judging by the citizen survey, putting that estimated $9.1 million a year into efforts to reduce the number of homeless people in Salem is a much higher priority than adding to the police and fire departments budget.

Thus Jim Scheppke had a great idea in a comment he left in response to Kaltwasser's question. (The payroll tax also is being called the "Commuter Tax," since it would raise money from the estimated 60,000 people who work in Salem but live elsewhere. It also would be paid by people who live and work in Salem, naturally.)

This idea should be seriously considered by the City Council.

I'm not sure when the deadline is for filing measures to appear on the May 19, 2020 primary ballot, but likely there is time to amend the measure that currently calls for all of the payroll tax money to be dedicated to public safety.

If you agree that helping the homeless is a better use for $9.1 million a year raised by the employee-paid payroll tax than adding police officers and fire department personnel that don't appear to be urgently needed, send an email to the Salem City Council telling them this: [email protected]

Homelessness is a lot like climate change. Local action isn't nearly enough.

Watching how city staff and the City Council are trying to deal with Salem's homeless problem reminds me of a 60 Minutes story I saw recently about Venice's flooding problem.

The periodic floods of Venice have become more threatening and more frequent. This past November, a sudden storm surge overwhelmed nearly 90% of the city. Climate scientists say what happened that night exactly two months ago in Venice is a warning to the world of what's to come – and not just in Venice.

Climate change is raising sea levels. Venice is being inundated with water to a greater extent than ever before. Giant gates that can be closed to keep the ocean out of Venice are under construction, but they were only designed to be used sparingly. Now, they'd have to be used often, because of the effect of climate change, which they weren't engineered to do.

The 60 Minutes piece showed people in Venice dealing with the flooding with pumps, buckets, raised walkways. All they can do is try to lessen the impact of the rising waters, not deal with the core problem: rapidly rising levels of greenhouse gases all over our planet.

Likewise, people in Salem are trying to deal with our city's homeless problem the best they can. Most recently, according to stories in the Salem Reporter, the City Council is considering allowing car camping in designated places and turning the city-owned Pringle Hall into a homeless shelter.

Yet these actions, as necessary as they are, are akin to pumping out water from a flooded Venice building, which has zero effect on global carbon dioxide levels. They do nothing to deal with the root causes of people living on the streets. 

Some residents of Venice have decided to move from their beautiful city, which I was able to spend a few days in back in 1968. But it really isn't possible to turn our backs on the homeless crisis, unless we're willing to turn our backs on fellow human beings who need our help.

Yesterday I walked along downtown's Court Street around 6 pm after my Tai Chi class was over. For the first time in a long time I didn't see any homeless people. Probably they had moved to the covered areas around the Nordstrom Mall and Rite-Aid, following a ban on homeless camps.

I have to be honest. It was more pleasant to not see homeless people and their belongings. That part of downtown seemed like it had returned to normal, at least for that one night.

But as I sipped a latte at Starbucks, I knew that Salem's homeless were still out there, having to cope with cold nights, physical and mental problems, the anxiety of not knowing when they'd be asked to move on by building security or police officers. It was as if I'd chanced upon a dry St. Mark's Square in Venice which, soon enough, would be flooded again.

Just as with climate change, dealing with homelessness requires action both locally and globally. A lack of affordable housing and extreme income inequality seem to be the main causes of homelessness, just as rising carbon dioxide levels are the prime cause of global warming.

So we can't expect much progress to be made on Salem's homeless problem until things change at the state and, especially, national level. Keep this in mind when you vote in the May primary election and November general election. 

It's an undeniable fact that Republicans in Oregon and elsewhere don't support actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions anywhere near to the extent that Democrats do. Republicans also aren't nearly as committed as Democrats are to increasing the supply of affordable housing and reducing income inequality.

Thus if you claim to care about helping the homeless, and think that all people in Salem need to do is open more shelter beds and give homeless people a safer place to sleep outside, think again.

If you aren't voting for Democrats or progressive independents in local, state, and national elections, you're acting like someone who believes that dumping water out of a flooded Venice building is saving that city from rising sea levels. Yes, dealing with the effects of global warming is necessary, just as dealing with the effects of a lack of affordable housing and income inequality is.

But until citizens in this country elect politicians who are willing and ready to address the root causes of homelessness, Salem and all other cities in the United States will be trying to deal with a rising tide that can't be stopped without drastic action.

Which hopefully, will come to pass after the 2020 election gives us a Democratic president and Congress.

Salem City Club discusses employee-paid payroll tax

Nobody likes paying taxes. (Well, almost nobody.) But everybody likes the services taxes provide. (Well, almost everybody.) That's the perpetual dilemma facing government at all levels, federal, state, local.

Robert (Bob) Barron

Today's Salem City Club program on the City of Salem's financial situation featured Bob Barron, who became the city's Chief Financial Officer last June -- a new position created by a reorganization at City Hall that did away with the assistant City Manager, leaving the CFO in charge of financial goings-on.

Barron has an impressive background, as evidenced by his bio above. He came across as a straight-shooter who will tell it like it is, budget-wise, which is exactly what the City of Salem needs from its Chief Financial Officer, because in some other regards city officials have been prone to shade the truth on policy matters.

And Barron gets bonus points for looking the part of a CFO. Plus he and his family have a Goldendoodle, which has to be one of the coolest breed names I've ever seen. (My wife and I have a Husky mix... boring name, by comparison.)

Don't subtract points for Barron living in Keizer. After his talk he told me that was necessary because they haven't sold their home in Connecticut yet, and they couldn't find a suitable place to live in Salem that accepted dogs.

Barron had an interesting observation about his ten years-plus working for FedEx. He said that at FedEx 10% of time was spent getting data, and 90% was spent analyzing the data. But his experience in the public sector was the reverse: 90% of time goes to obtaining information, leaving just 10% to make sense of it.

(He did add that the situation with the public sector is improving somewhat.)

Early on in his talk Barron noted a big difference between Connecticut and Oregon. Oregon limits annual property tax increases, while Connecticut doesn't. So in his previous jobs with Connecticut city governments, a gap between projected revenues and expenses could be met simply: raise the property tax rate.

Here in Salem, though, property taxes can only go up 3% a year, which often isn't enough to meet the demand for services. Which led to the slide below that shows the financial problems facing the City of Salem.

You can see in the top box, if you're able to read small print, that the City of Salem faces a $10.9 million operating deficit in FY 2020.  That's the difference between general fund revenues and expenses. It's reasonable to ask how the city got into this mess, but that's another subject, and it wasn't raised at today's City Club meeting.

The middle box contains a bit of good news. A couple of accounting items -- Unspent Contingency and Personnel Vacancies -- are estimated to bring the $10.9 million deficit down to a "mere" $5.8 million. 

Then, in the right of the bottom box, some magic happens, and the decrease in what amounts to reserve funds drops to just $2.3 million. From my scribbled notes, I'm pretty sure this is the result of the Operations Fee passed by the City Council last year. (See above.)

The fee won't be in effect for the full fiscal year, and a Statesman Journal story said that it would raise roughly $7.1 million in the first year. Since half of $7.1 million is about $3.5 million, and $5.8 million minus $3.5 million is $2.3 million, this shows that, almost certainly, the Operations Fee is the reason the FY 2020 deficit drops to $2.3 million.

An employee-paid payroll tax is the other way city officials hope to deal with the general fund deficit.

The City Council decided to refer this to voters in the May 2020 election. I suspect it will be a close call as to whether the payroll tax is approved. When the election grows closer I'll write more about the pros and cons of the payroll tax.

One fact that is either a pro or a con, depending on a person's perspective, is that an estimated 60,000 people who work in Salem and live somewhere else would pay the tax. But they won't be able to vote on the tax. So we can expect to hear a lot of talk about "no taxation without representation" from aggrieved commuters to Salem.

Bob Barron said that the tax is fair, because those 60,000 people use city services. However, the payroll tax, which is expected to raise about $9.1 million a year, would be dedicated to public safety: police, fire, compliance (not sure what that means), and traffic safety.

The flip side of that supposed fairness, of course, is that thousands of other people live in Salem, but work elsewhere. So even though they use city services, they wouldn't be subject to the payroll tax.

Councilor Tom Andersen spoke briefly after Barron's presentation. He defended the employee-paid payroll tax, though he said that he would have preferred that the City Council had approved it directly, rather than referring it to voters. 

Andersen said that from what he's heard so far, the argument against the payroll tax will be along the lines of... Government always wants more money and they do a bad job of spending what we give them; the new police facility has had massive construction cost overruns, so why should we throw more money at the City of Salem; and so on. (Can't remember a few other reasons Andersen gave).

I got to ask a question during the Q&A period. It went like this:

"The payroll tax is dedicated to public safety. Police and fire make up most of the general fund budget. Crime rates are going down. There are fewer fires now. So are you two confident that inefficiencies have been wrung out of the police and fire budgets, since likely there will be a spotlight on this issue in the run-up to the May vote on the payroll tax?"

Not surprisingly, the responses from Barron and Andersen were general and non-specific. I recall that Councilor Andersen related that the police chief had talked about burn-out among his officers, saying that it was difficult to find someone willing to put in overtime when this was needed.

There's going to be a City Club debate on the payroll tax in April, the month before the election, so I'm confident this and other issues related to the public safety budget will be discussed at that time. 

Honor Mike Swaim by making Salem more progressive

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

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

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

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

Which means, in part:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike was truly a democrat with a small d.

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

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

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

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

Mike was also much concerned with the environment.

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

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

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

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

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

-- Bill Smaldone