Salem Political Snark

Poll shows Salem residents oppose higher property taxes for city services

Not at all what Salem's city officials were hoping for when they commissioned a survey to learn the degree of support for two possible proposals aimed at increasing property tax revenue to fund city services. 

A Salem Reporter story lays out the main survey findings. Here's how "In poll, Salem residents say they won't pay more property taxes for public safety, library or parks" starts out. 

Salem voters won’t pay more in property taxes to avoid deep cuts to the city’s library, parks or emergency services.

That’s according to a new poll commissioned by the city of Salem, which targeted over 400 potential voters, asking how they’d feel about two potential property tax increases. It was conducted by DHM Research over the phone and online between Sept. 10 and 16. 

The poll found at this point in time Salem voters would likely reject either of two levy options: a “livability levy” focusing on libraries, Center 50+ and parks, or a public safety levy funding police, fire and emergency response. 

The poll aimed to gauge voter support, and see if there was a preference between the two options.

Many of the voters opposed to the levy options said they couldn’t afford new taxes.

“The only thing that I was surprised by was the magnitude,” City Manager Keith Stahley told Salem Reporter. “Nearly 40% of the respondents said they were certain they would vote no. That’s a high number.” 

The City of Salem Levy Survey report is interesting reading. Here's screenshots of two key results.
Download City of Salem Levy Survey

Opposition to both the public safety and community livability levies is almost exactly equal. This will disappoint those who thought people would prefer either funding police/fire or libraries/parks. The answer: neither.

Library services are much beloved by a small group of passionate proponents. Unfortunately for them, the survey found that library services aren't very important to the general public. Here's a summary of the findings.

I don't envy the City Council. They'll discuss the survey findings next Monday, needing to figure out in what direction to move in dealing with City of Salem budget shortfalls.

My feeling is that they should take a closer look at the proposal for a city income tax targeted at higher earners that was considered by a revenue-raising task force, along with other options such as the property tax levies that are much disliked by citizens. 

I suspect that a local income tax exempting low income people, with the highest rates paid by those with the greatest ability to pay the tax, would be more popular than increasing property taxes on all property owners. 

But the City Council will have to deal with a general feeling that the City of Salem is on the wrong track, which makes passing any sort of option to raise more revenue an uphill battle. Yes, voter mood has improved since 2022, but it is way down from 2017-18.

Looks like paid parking is coming to downtown Salem. Bad idea?

Downtown parking here in Salem used to be free and unlimited, if my memory serves me correctly. Then parking was still free, but limited in hours -- currently three. 

In 2013, when downtown parking was free with a two hour limit, city officials planned to install parking meters. That idea was met with strong resistance from downtown businesses and led to a petition drive spearheaded by downtown resident and business owner Carole Smith aimed at stopping paid parking.

The City Council ended up implementing the initiative language rather than let it go to a vote of the people. That allowed the Council to be able to change the language in the future themselves instead of having free parking locked into the city statutes. 

Today I was reminded that paid parking was approved in a rather sneaky way in 2023 when the City Council voted to request that staff prepare a plan for paid on-street parking in the downtown area. An excellent in-depth story today by Abbey McDonald about the state of downtown in the Salem Reporter, "The problems and promise of downtown Salem," said:

[Councilor] Stapleton said the city is investing in improvements to downtown sidewalks, storefronts and is renovating its parking garages.

She thinks a major step in improving downtown will come when the city implements paid parking, which councilors approved last year. The goal is to bring in more money to support parking improvements, and phase out the downtown business tax that currently pays for street parking and parkade maintenance.

The paid parking will fund security in the parking garages, maintenance of parkades and parking spaces and decorations like flower baskets from light posts. The city will begin outreach and engagement for the paid parking plan next month, said city spokeswoman Nicole Miller. 

“I know some people are going to have mixed feelings about going to paid parking, but in the end, this is going to be beneficial for downtown businesses, and that is a key part of why we are doing this,” Stapleton said.

I suspect that "mixed feelings" is an understatement when people realize that parking downtown on the street is going to require a trip to one of those machines that handle paid parking outside of downtown. Some downtown businesses and regular visitors will favor paid parking, but many will hate the idea.

This is why the city spokeswoman said that outreach and engagement for the paid parking plan will begin in October. Another way to put it other than "outreach and engagement" is sales job. 

I go to a Tai Chi class on downtown's Court Street three days a week. Usually I park for free on the street. Occasionally I use the Commercial Street parking garage. I never pay for parking anywhere in Salem. Every business I patronize offers free parking. 

That's why I worry about making downtown Salem a paid on street parking area. Sure, the parking garages will still be free, but I prefer not to use them. It's more convenient and pleasant for me to park on the street. 

Now, it could be argued that we're spoiled here in Salem. Large cities typically have paid parking in their urban cores. There's sound environmental reasons to prefer this, since making automotive travel cheaper and easier goes against the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

I get that. But here's part of what I said in my 2023 post about downtown parking meters:

I'm uncertain about whether having parking meters in downtown Salem is a good or bad idea. It all depends on the details.

I'd view parking meters more favorably if the City of Salem dedicated the revenue from them to making improvements in downtown Salem. Deciding on how that money would be spent should be up to a genuine independent Downtown Association, which currently doesn't exist. 

Using parking meter money to maintain the parking garages, where parking is free for downtown visitors, doesn't make a lot of sense. Why not charge for parking in the parking garages, so they are self-sustaining? 

By improvements, I don't mean just hanging flower baskets. I mean changes to downtown that would make the sidewalks much more attractive and pleasant. City officials put a lot of work into streetscape designs for downtown Salem not too long ago. Few of those improvements have been made.

If I knew that the money I was paying to park downtown was going to make the area appreciably better, I'd be much happier. Paying for maintenance and security in the parking garages isn't a great selling point for me. 

City of Salem has to pay $1 million for excessive force in George Floyd protest

I guess it's a sort of poetic justice.

Today the Salem Reporter has a story about how the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a $1 million damage award against the Salem Police Department after a woman was seriously injured by rubber bullets during a May 31, 2020 protest against police violence in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

So the Salem Police Department used excessive force during a local protest against the use of excessive force by the Minneapolis Police Department. While there's a certain amusing irony to this, the harm done to Eleaqia McCrae was no laughing matter. 

Here's an excerpt from a September 2020 Salem Reporter story about the lawsuit filed on behalf of McCrae.

The lawsuit said the crowd linked arms and knelt in the street. At 10:03 p.m. Salem police used tear gas on the crowd after the police review said people were throwing objects at them.

“Then, the use tear gas, smoke bombs, pepper grenades, flash grenades, rubber bullets, foam-tipped munitions and batons are deployed when the demonstrators cannot leave. These tactics make it more difficult for law-abiding protesters to comply with police officers’ dispersal orders,” the lawsuit states.

When McCrae got up to leave, the lawsuit said she was shot twice. One bullet hit her chest and the other hit her eye. After being shot in the eye, McCrae bent over in pain and passed out, the lawsuit states.

“She took a few steps, her vision was gone, her ears were ringing. Now blinded in one eye and unable to see out of her other eye due to SPD’s use of tear gas on the peaceful march, Elea McCrae stumbled, fell, and passed out,” the complaint reads.

When she came to, McCrae was taken to the emergency room for her eye where she needed surgery to repair the damage after suffering permanent vision loss, the complaint said.

This wasn't a shining moment for the Salem Police Department, to put it mildly. In July 2020 I wrote a post, "The Salem Police Department has a big blind spot."

Here's the problem I have with how Chief Jerry Moore has defended the actions taken by the Salem Police Department during the recent Black Lives Matter protests.

Everything Moore has said is based on a flawed militaristic meet-force-with-larger-force policing philosophy. It's akin to a man explaining why he broke someone's nose in a bar fight when the real question is, "Was the fight necessary?"

In the 10-page report Chief Moore released about his department's response to the protests, there is no real discussion of the overall approach taken. It simply is assumed that tear gas is fine to use on a group of mostly peaceful people, and that a SWAT team should be called out to help deal with them. 

In September 2o20 I wrote, "Rubber bullet lawsuit undermines credibility of Salem Police Department."

This sure sounds like a Salem Police Department cover-up. There's little or no doubt that McCrae's injuries were caused by rubber bullets. She says that a police officer spoke with her after she was shot in the chest and eye. She was taken to the Salem Hospital Emergency Room.

Yet Chief Moore claimed that he wasn't aware "of any injuries to those in the crowd due to police actions."

Wow. Chief Moore must not have done much investigating before the after-action report was written. Or his police offices lied to him about their not being any injuries to protesters. Or Chief Moore deliberately withheld the rubber bullets injuries from his report.

Whichever possibility is true, it's a big blow to the credibility of the Salem Police Department. Shouldn't the department have contacted the Emergency Room to learn if there were people admitted with injuries caused by the actions of police officers?

They learned about a protester being struck in the head by a brick thrown by another protester. Yet the department was clueless, supposedly, about a protester being shot in the eye and chest by bullets fired by a police officer or officers.

There's no doubt that Chief Moore's after-action report was deeply flawed. The only question is whether this was deliberate or a result of incompetence. 

Hopefully we will learn which is true in the course of the lawsuit being adjudicated.

After a jury awarded McCrae the $1 million, the City of Salem appealed to U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who reversed the jury's decision. Today's Salem Reporter story says:

The federal judge’s decision to toss the lawsuit last year was remarkable, according to Athul Acharya, executive director of the law firm Public Accountability, who represented McCrae in her appeal. 

“Judges are generally quite deferential to jury verdicts,” he said.

When I checked on what president appointed Immergut to her District Court position, it wasn't surprising that it was Donald Trump. OPB reported on the screwy process that enabled Immergut to be confirmed. 

For the first time in history, the [Senate] committee, on which Republicans enjoy a majority, opted to hold confirmation hearings while the Senate was on a monthlong recess. Democrats were occupied defending the 26 seats up in the November 2018 election. So, when Immergut's confirmation hearing rolled around on Oct. 24, half the dais sat empty. She was asked only three questions over the course of three minutes — all from one senator.

The bad news is that like all federal judges, Immergut has a lifetime appointment, so she'll have many more opportunities to make poor decisions like she did with the McRae excessive force case. The good news, of course, is that the Ninth Circuit reversed her, so maybe Immergut will learn from this that she needs to follow the law more closely in her rulings. 

City of Salem has to pay $1 million for excessive force in George Floyd protest

I guess it's a sort of poetic justice.

Today the Salem Reporter has a story about how the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a $1 million damage award against the Salem Police Department after a woman was seriously injured by rubber bullets during a May 31, 2020 protest against police violence in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

So the Salem Police Department used excessive force during a local protest against the use of excessive force by the Minneapolis Police Department. While there's a certain amusing irony to this, the harm done to Eleaqia McCrae was no laughing matter. 

Here's an excerpt from a September 2020 Salem Reporter story about the lawsuit filed on behalf of McCrae.

The lawsuit said the crowd linked arms and knelt in the street. At 10:03 p.m. Salem police used tear gas on the crowd after the police review said people were throwing objects at them.

“Then, the use tear gas, smoke bombs, pepper grenades, flash grenades, rubber bullets, foam-tipped munitions and batons are deployed when the demonstrators cannot leave. These tactics make it more difficult for law-abiding protesters to comply with police officers’ dispersal orders,” the lawsuit states.

When McCrae got up to leave, the lawsuit said she was shot twice. One bullet hit her chest and the other hit her eye. After being shot in the eye, McCrae bent over in pain and passed out, the lawsuit states.

“She took a few steps, her vision was gone, her ears were ringing. Now blinded in one eye and unable to see out of her other eye due to SPD’s use of tear gas on the peaceful march, Elea McCrae stumbled, fell, and passed out,” the complaint reads.

When she came to, McCrae was taken to the emergency room for her eye where she needed surgery to repair the damage after suffering permanent vision loss, the complaint said.

This wasn't a shining moment for the Salem Police Department, to put it mildly. In July 2020 I wrote a post, "The Salem Police Department has a big blind spot."

Here's the problem I have with how Chief Jerry Moore has defended the actions taken by the Salem Police Department during the recent Black Lives Matter protests.

Everything Moore has said is based on a flawed militaristic meet-force-with-larger-force policing philosophy. It's akin to a man explaining why he broke someone's nose in a bar fight when the real question is, "Was the fight necessary?"

In the 10-page report Chief Moore released about his department's response to the protests, there is no real discussion of the overall approach taken. It simply is assumed that tear gas is fine to use on a group of mostly peaceful people, and that a SWAT team should be called out to help deal with them. 

In September 2o20 I wrote, "Rubber bullet lawsuit undermines credibility of Salem Police Department."

This sure sounds like a Salem Police Department cover-up. There's little or no doubt that McCrae's injuries were caused by rubber bullets. She says that a police officer spoke with her after she was shot in the chest and eye. She was taken to the Salem Hospital Emergency Room.

Yet Chief Moore claimed that he wasn't aware "of any injuries to those in the crowd due to police actions."

Wow. Chief Moore must not have done much investigating before the after-action report was written. Or his police offices lied to him about their not being any injuries to protesters. Or Chief Moore deliberately withheld the rubber bullets injuries from his report.

Whichever possibility is true, it's a big blow to the credibility of the Salem Police Department. Shouldn't the department have contacted the Emergency Room to learn if there were people admitted with injuries caused by the actions of police officers?

They learned about a protester being struck in the head by a brick thrown by another protester. Yet the department was clueless, supposedly, about a protester being shot in the eye and chest by bullets fired by a police officer or officers.

There's no doubt that Chief Moore's after-action report was deeply flawed. The only question is whether this was deliberate or a result of incompetence. 

Hopefully we will learn which is true in the course of the lawsuit being adjudicated.

After a jury awarded McCrae the $1 million, the City of Salem appealed to U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who reversed the jury's decision. Today's Salem Reporter story says:

The federal judge’s decision to toss the lawsuit last year was remarkable, according to Athul Acharya, executive director of the law firm Public Accountability, who represented McCrae in her appeal. 

“Judges are generally quite deferential to jury verdicts,” he said.

When I checked on what president appointed Immergut to her District Court position, it wasn't surprising that it was Donald Trump. OPB reported on the screwy process that enabled Immergut to be confirmed. 

For the first time in history, the [Senate] committee, on which Republicans enjoy a majority, opted to hold confirmation hearings while the Senate was on a monthlong recess. Democrats were occupied defending the 26 seats up in the November 2018 election. So, when Immergut's confirmation hearing rolled around on Oct. 24, half the dais sat empty. She was asked only three questions over the course of three minutes — all from one senator.

The bad news is that like all federal judges, Immergut has a lifetime appointment, so she'll have many more opportunities to make poor decisions like she did with the McRae excessive force case. The good news, of course, is that the Ninth Circuit reversed her, so maybe Immergut will learn from this that she needs to follow the law more closely in her rulings. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salem City Council facing tough choices on revenue-raising options

It wouldn't be surprising if Mayor Hoy and the other members of the Salem City Council have a bit of post-traumatic stress as they get serious at next Monday's council meeting about choosing an option to raise revenue for city services, which are heading for a $15 million shortfall in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2025. 

That figure is in an informative Salem Reporter story, "Library advocates push for property tax increase to restore Salem library hours."

Local library advocates organizing through the group Fund Our Libraries Now are asking the Salem City Council to seek voter approval for a property tax increase to fund the city’s library system.

The city council will meet Monday at 6 p.m. to continue discussions about how to best address the city’s $15 million budget deficit expected in the next year. 

Library leaders cut hours in January, closing the main library branch on Sunday and reducing the West Salem branch to two days per week.

If the city doesn’t raise more revenue through taxes, fees or other means, City Manager Keith Stahley’s budget plans call for deep cuts, including the closure of the West Salem branch next year. 

The stress would be caused by a previous failed attempt to raise revenue through an employee payroll tax on everybody who works in Salem, whether or not they live here. That option was referred to the voters through a business-backed initiative campaign, where it failed big time on the November 2023 ballot with a dismal 18% of the vote. 

Of course, the four councilors who supported a referral to the public rather than passing it through a City Council vote -- Julie Hoy, Deanna Gwyn, Jose Gonzalez, Vanessa Nordyke -- probably feel less stress at this point than the five councilors who supported bypassing a public vote: Mayor Chris Hoy, Virginia Stapleton, Trevor Phillips, Micky Varney, Linda Nishioka.

The public comments for next Monday's council meeting are entirely in support of a Livability Levy that would pay for library, parks, recreation, and Center 50+ in line with a local option property tax levy that was one of the recommendations of the Revenue Task Force that presented its final report to the council on July 15. Jim Scheppke and other backers of the library deserve a lot of credit for marshaling so much support for this important service.

However, while many of the public comments say that the Livability Levy was recommended by the Revenue Task Force, actually this is just one of the property tax examples in the group's report.

The Revenue Task Force didn't express a preference for which of the eight options it presented to the City Council should be implemented.

This surprised me.

When I first looked at the report of the Revenue Task Force, I kept expecting to learn which of the eight revenue raising options were most favored by the task force. Apparently the group couldn't agree on that, so they just forwarded every option to the City Council with an implied "you guys are going to have to decide what to do."

That'll be a difficult decision.

Choose wrong, and another defeat at the ballot box would be a disaster for the City of Salem. Sure, you get three strikes in baseball before you're called out, but two losses at the hands of voters would be a major setback. City officials then would have to make do with the options that don't require a vote of the people.

Likely some members of the City Council will favor a local option property tax levy that funds the police and fire departments, while others will favor the Livability Levy mentioned above. Personally, and I speak as someone who lives outside of the city limits, so I'm not financially affected with what's decided, I think the personal income tax option deserves serious consideration.

An income tax can be tailored to exempt people who make less than a certain amount, and to have people with the highest incomes pay a higher percentage than those with lower incomes.

Property taxes aren't levied on an ability to pay, but on the value of the property. So someone with a high income who lives in an inexpensive house gets off easy, while someone with a low income who lives in an expensive house has to pay more.

Sure, a city income tax would be a new tax in Salem and need some explaining. A benefit of choosing this option would be the side-stepping of whether the police and fire departments are a higher funding priority than the library, parks, and 50+ center. Receipts from an income tax could simply go into the general fund, where they would be used to pay for any services in the city budget. 

This would make the "Yes on ___" campaign message simpler.

The pitch would be that if the city income tax proposal passes, all of the services currently provided by the City of Salem would be protected from cuts. Otherwise the campaign will have to explain why this service is more deserving than that service, if a property tax dedicated for certain programs is put before voters.

Bush Park baseball stadium expansion moves forward with Parks Board vote

The Salem Reporter is doing a great job keeping our community informed about plans for improving the Willamette University baseball field at Bush Park, which would host summer games for a new Salem for-profit team that would join the West Coast League.

Yesterday a story was published about a Thursday meeting of the Parks Advisory Board where the baseball project moved forward. Here's an excerpt from "City parks board advances plans for Spec Keene Stadium."

Members of Salem’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board on Thursday voted in support of an updated agreement with Willamette University advancing plans to use a stadium adjacent to Bush’s Pasture Park for a for-profit summer baseball league.

The agreement would allow Willamette University to encroach slightly on the city park for improvements at the university-owned Spec Keene and McCulloch Stadium.

Following concerns raised by neighbors, the board recommended a final agreement including a requirement Willamette offer shuttle service and other measures intended to address concerns about parking and impact.

Willamette and Salem Baseball plan to use the stadium as the home field for a new team in the West Coast League that includes the Portland Pickles. The team would host about 27 games each summer. The university would also update the softball stadium at 501 14th St. S.E.

The plans include added accessibility, new fencing and a new field light pole. The project received $3 million in taxpayer money from state legislators earlier this year, primarily because the development will allow local high schools to use the field for free. Lara Tiffin, who directs athletics for the school district, said high schools will use their own fields when the weather’s nice, but the turf fields will be a benefit when it’s rainy.

Neighborhood opposition is having an impact on the project, though I suspect that this won't be enough to derail the stadium improvements. 

After all, there's been quite a bit of buy-in from the City of Salem, Willamette University, the Salem Baseball Club, and the Salem-Keizer School District. 

In December 2023 a Memorandum of Understanding was entered into by the City of Salem, Willamette University, and the Salem Baseball Club. In January 2024 the West Coast League announced that a Salem team would be added, name to be determined later, since Salem Baseball Club is just a placeholder. (Hopefully the name will be more appealing than Portland Pickles, a current league team.)

Friday, the West Coast League happily announced the addition of its 17th member in Salem, Oregon, opening play in 2025. The Salem Baseball Club will join the Springfield Drifters, Bend Elks, Corvallis Knights, and Portland Pickles as the league’s fifth Oregon-based team.

“When you look at a map,” said WCL Commissioner Rob Neyer, “adding another team in the Willamette Valley is an easy call for us. We were simply waiting for the perfect situation, and with the Salem Baseball Club, that’s now exactly what we’ve got.”

The Salem Baseball Club name is a placeholder until a new team name, logo, and mascot are determined and unveiled to the public. SBC will play its home games at Willamette University’s ballpark in downtown Salem.

A March 2024 Salem Reporter story, "Fans abound for stadium upgrade but critics worry about impact on Bush Park," noted that the for-profit team will use unpaid college players for the summer league. 

State legislators recently earmarked $3 million from taxpayers to pay for upgrading the stadium.

University officials propose to replace grass with artificial turf, install new and taller field lights, open more entryways and add field netting.

The university then would turn over the stadium for the summer to Salem Baseball LLC. The company is led by Luke Emanuel, a Salem native who worked eight years as director of baseball operations at the University of Oregon.

Emanuel’s company bought the Salem franchise for the West Coast League and wants Keene Stadium to be its home field. The league features college players who are between school seasons.

As Emanuel envisions the scene, up to 1,500 fans would settle into stadium seats for 27 home games a season. They’d have access to concessions, including beer, and likely pay no more than $10 for a ticket to a game, Emanuel said.

...The request came with a host of endorsing letters. The Salem-Keizer School District’s coordinator of athletics said high schools expect to rent the fields “on a regular basis.”

The Boys & Girls Club of Salem Marion and Polk Counties said it anticipated using the ball field for summer camp, flag football and fundraising tournaments. The Family YMCA of Marion & Polk Counties said the project would “provide space for youth and adults to participate in multi-sport camp programs.”

Upgrading the fields would help Salem’s economy, Travel Salem said in its letter.

“The positive ripple effects of this investment will be felt through increased tourism, local business engagement, and the overall enhancement of Salem’s reputation as a sports destination,” the organization wrote.

As I said in my first blog post about this project, this is one of those issues where proponents and opponents each have valid arguments for why the stadium expansion and summer use by Salem Baseball LLC should either move forward or be stopped in its tracks.

The stadium expansion does seem like a done deal, since most of the money for it has been raised. However, it requires approval by the Salem Council, given that part of the expansion would be on Bush Park land.

If that happens, seemingly use of the stadium by Salem Baseball LLC would be a matter decided between the LLC and Willamette University, which owns the stadium. But I could be wrong about this.

Salem residents appear to favor a progressive income tax to pay for city services

Thanks to a May 7 story in the Salem Reporter, I learned about the results of a survey that asked 400 Salem residents how they felt about various issues associated with the push to find a way to raise money to pay for City of Salem budget shortfalls. 

Here's a PDF file of the survey results.
Download City of Salem Funding Survey

I scrolled through the results, looking for the issue that seemed most important if city officials are going to succeed in convincing citizens that this (whatever it is) is the best approach to bridge the gap between the services that need to be provided by the City of Salem, and the funding available to pay for the services.

This is what seemed most germane to me.

Almost two thirds of those surveyed, 64%, said people should pay an amount that is proportional to their income or wealth. In other words, Salem residents favor a progressive approach to raising revenue -- in the sense that a tax should have a lower rate for low income people and a higher rate for high income people.

Aside from the broad overall support for a progressive/proportional tax, this is favored by every subgroup other than Republicans. And Republicans were almost evenly split on this issue.

So it seems to me that a progressive income tax aimed at getting the most money from high income Salem residents is the most feasible approach to dealing with the City of Salem budget problems.

I don't like the idea of having a dedicated tax for public safety (police/fire), the library, or whatever. I understand the appeal of this: find a popular service the city provides, then ask voters to pass a tax that funds that service, which frees up general fund money for other services. 

This just seems unnecessary. Taxing people in a manner proportional to their income or wealth is highly popular. Wealth is difficult to determine. Income is easy to determine via state income tax records. Lower income people can be exempted from the tax entirely. 

I suspect that if a progressive income tax proposal was clearly explained to voters, it would be approved.

Yes, other survey questions indicated that user fees and a business tax were considerably more popular than an income tax, but a survey isn't the best way to assess how people in Salem feel about various revenue raising options, given that respondents weren't able to carefully consider the pros and cons of the options they were presented with.

All I know is that a Hoy won the Mayoral Debate

Last Tuesday the Salem Reporter and Salem City Club held a debate between the two candidates for Mayor. One thing is clear: Hoy won.

I can say that with complete confidence because the candidates were incumbent Mayor Chris Hoy and his unrelated opponent, Councilor Julie Hoy. 

Given Chris' much longer political experience, and his incumbency, I figured that he would dominate the debate. But though I think Chris was sharper and more on point with his answers to questions posed by people from the sponsoring organizations, which earned him a win in my utterly personal opinion, Julie performed better than I thought she would.

You can watch the debate via a Capital Community Media video. 

Chris is a progressive. Julie is a conservative.

This was reflected in their differing takes on the City of Salem budget problems. Chris doesn't want to cut any current programs, saying that more revenue is needed to preserve those programs. Julie put more of an emphasis on living within budget limitations, though she was open to revenue raising options such as a dedicated tax for funding the library.

One reason she favors such a tax could be her wanting public safety, police and fire department operations, to be the top funding priority. Yet Julie was impressed with how much citizen support the library has been getting. So a dedicated library tax would make it possible to spend more on public safety from the city's general fund without further reducing popular library services.

Interestingly, Chris said that he'd be open to a dedicated tax for public safety. Since he worked as a deputy sheriff for many years in Clackamas County, support for the police is part of his political DNA. Also, he may believe that a tax dedicated to public safety would have a better chance of being approved by voters than a general tax for city services. 

Several times Julie shied away from directly answering a question by saying that she needed to study the issue more, would rely on people who know more about it than she does, or simply misunderstanding the question -- such as when she referred to financial capital when a question asked about spending political capital. 

On the plus side, Julie sounded pleasingly humble when she said that she wasn't the smartest person in a room and would listen to more knowledgeable people. Chris came across at times as being unwilling to admit to mistakes and weaknesses, as when he defended his decision to not refer an employee payroll tax to voters, who defeated it big time after an initiative petition put it on last November's ballot.

I think he might have been better served by looking straight at the camera and saying something like, "I thought it was the right thing to do -- not asking citizens to vote on the payroll tax -- but I now realize how wrong I was. Live and learn. That's what I promise to keep doing if you reelect me as mayor."

Citizen activism prevents additional Salem Library cuts. For now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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