Salem Political Snark

Good and bad of Mayor Hoy's 2023 State of the City address

A few days ago Salem Mayor Chris Hoy gave his first State of the City address at the Salem Convention Center. You can read what he had to say by clicking on the "continuation" link at the end of this blog post.

Hoy's talk was well-written and informative. I came away impressed by the rundown on what has been accomplished in Salem. 

The homelessness section made me think that maybe, just maybe, we're finally making a dent in the number of people without a place of their own to call home. The micro shelters are helping with this. The Navigation Center to be opened in a few months sounds like a terrific addition to our homeless services.

I noticed in the section of the speech below that Mayor Hoy failed to mention that a big reason why the homeless person wasn't arrested for methamphetamine use is Measure 110, which decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs like meth.

I'm a supporter of Measure 110, so I wanted to point out that it facilitates addicts asking for help, since now they don't have to worry about jail time. Hoy said: 

In fact, an officer recently contacted an individual living on the streets who was an admitted methamphetamine addict. He told the officer he was ready for help. The officer knew it was critical to get the person into help right then. Through his contacts with local service providers, they were collectively able to get him into substance abuse treatment. Previous approaches would have resulted in the individuals arrest, but now he is getting the intervention he needs that will hopefully help him break the cycle of addiction. 

Mayor Hoy says that paid on-street parking in the downtown area is inevitable. Well, maybe. I just hope that before the City Council approves downtown parking meters, doing away with the current 3-hour free on-street parking, there's a genuine attempt to gauge public opinion on this.

City officials shouldn't assume that the people pushing for parking meters, which I suspect includes the Salem Main Street Association, truly represent a broad cross-section of downtown visitors, business owners, and residents.

Given that I strongly suspect the push to bring back commercial passenger air service to the Salem airport is doomed to fail like previous attempts have, the laudatory mention of this effort by Mayor Hoy may not age well when looked at in a few years.

Since air travel is one of the biggest ways individuals contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions, it's perplexing that Hoy, who strongly supported the Salem Climate Action Plan, is so positive about bringing commercial passenger air travel to the Salem airport.

My biggest problem with Mayor Hoy's talk was his unabashed support for adding 70 new officers to the Salem Police Department and 111 new firefighters to the Salem Fire Department. Those departments already suck up the majority of general fund tax dollars, about 60% to my understanding.

Crime rates in Salem are stable. Salem has about the same number of police officers per 1,000 population as other Oregon cities our size. So adding 70 new officers seems wildly out of place.

Fires are a small proportion of calls to the Fire Department, since it mostly is a "Medical Department." It's crazy that giant fire engines are used to respond to medical calls, that all of those engines need to be replaced at considerable cost, and that there's an effort to add 111 new firefighters to the Salem Fire Department without first looking at ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the department.

Mayor Hoy began his talk by saying "It's a time of fresh ideas." OK, then let's explore fresh ideas for the Police and Fire Departments that don't involve massive tax increases to pay for many more officers and firefighters who, apparently, would be doing the same un-fresh things.

You can read Mayor Hoy's talk below.

City officials still keeping secret why deputy police chief got $53,500 on way out

The City of Salem slogan, At Your Service, deserves to be changed to At Your Secret Service, given the lengths city officials have gone to preserve a veil of secrecy over Deputy Police Chief Steve Bellshaw's highly unusual $53,500 taxpayer payment as he was leaving his position under suspicious circumstances.

The Salem Reporter has been doggedly trying to pry what should be public information out of the closed fist of city officials. Here's how their newest story on this subject starts out.

The city of Salem was prepared in the fall to release key documents about the unusual departure of a top police official suspected of misconduct but stopped in the face of a legal threat from the former deputy chief, according to newly released records.

Salem city officials instead decided the documents were confidential even though Steve Bellshaw had retired under a special deal in which he was paid $53,500 in taxpayer money and agreed not to sue the city.

The city has been quiet about the deputy chief’s retirement in February 2022 and has resisted disclosing anything about the matter in the seven months since Salem Reporter requested Bellshaw’s separation agreement with the city. 

So much for hopes that the new City Manager, Keith Stahley, would bring with him an increased commitment to transparency. It sure looks like he's endorsing the same approach his predecessor practiced: make it as difficult as possible for the public to learn how their tax dollars are being spent.

When a government agency refuses to reveal information to journalists or concerned citizens, almost always it's because they're trying to hide something. In this case, it's what Bellshaw was being investigated for, and why the City of Salem gave him $53,500 rather than pursue the investigation.

It's bizarre that an on-again, off-again investigation into wrongdoing by Deputy Chief Bellshaw ended up not with Bellshaw being held accountable for whatever he did, but with him getting what appears to be a hefty hush money payment when he decided to retire.

Though it's impossible to know exactly what went on here given the refusal of city officials to come clean about the investigation into Bellshaw and the $53,500 payment, my suspicion is that whatever Bellshaw did, disclosing it would have made both Bellshaw and the Salem Police Department look bad, so city officials decided to let Bellshaw retire with a big bonus in hopes the whole wrongdoing thing would just go away.

Which, it might, since it doesn't look like the City of Salem is ever going to release the records requested by the Salem Reporter. Here's how their story ends.

City officials have refused to explain the allegations against Bellshaw, claiming state law wouldn’t allow it and that they had to protect the city’s legal work. But documents the city released in November showed an off-and-on effort to bring in an outside investigator.

Thenell told Salem Reporter in a November interview that Bellshaw was never told there would be an investigation. Thenell said talks to reach a settlement started with the city at the time Bellshaw was placed on administrative leave, which happened on Nov. 12, 2021.

Crime in Salem has been stable from 2008-2022

Last Friday the Salem City Club had a program with the provocative title, Does Salem Have a Crime Problem? Perceptions and Realities. 

It featured Salem Police Chief Trevor Womack, and two neighborhood association chairs: Lynn Takata of Northeast Neighbors and Cory Poole of the Southeast Mill Creek Association.

Womack started things off by sharing slides of some of the 2008-2022 crime statistics that are available for viewing on the City of Salem web site. Below are screenshots from that web page.

This is the most inclusive crime statistic. NIBRS includes homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny, and arson. The trend line of the rate per 100,000 Salem residents over the past 15 years is flat. So overall the crime rate is very stable. 

Homicides, or murders, get a lot of attention. But they're rare in Salem, ranging from 1 to 9 homicides a year over the past 15 years. This leads to a lot of fluctuations in the homicide rate. Yes, it is trending upward slightly, from 3.0 per 100,000 population to about 3.7. However, that trend line is so dependent on rare homicide events, it isn't very meaningful.

The overall violent crime rate is trending upward, though. This includes homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The rape rate is declining, while the rates for the other violent offenses are increasing. 

Property crime is the most common category of crime in Salem. It includes burglary, larceny, arson, and motor vehicle theft. The property crime rate has been decreasing somewhat over the past 15 years. Burglary and larceny rates are trending downward, while motor vehicle theft and arson are trending upward.

So the Police Department data show that overall, the rate of crime in Salem has been stable from 2008-2022. A rise in the violent crime rate has been offset by a decline in the property crime rate.

This might explain why Chief Womack said about the question of whether Salem has a crime problem, it depends on someone's tolerance level. He added that different neighborhoods have different crime rates, so perceptions about a crime problem will vary for this reason.

In fact, Takata noted that perceptions can vary among people on different sides of the same city park. Poole also observed that perceptions about crime can differ from the data. One reason for this could be that burglaries and other property crimes sometimes aren't reported, since people feel that police won't do anything about the crime.

Which is a valid feeling, since Womack said that the police department is focusing on violent crime and traffic fatalities. 

City Council approves $2.4 million for airport in dumb move

Here we go again.

Monday night the City Council approved spending $2.4 million in precious general fund dollars in yet another attempt to lure an airline willing to provide commercial air service at the Salem airport.

I guess Mayor Hoy and the eight city councilors have short memories. Or a penchant to forget the not-very-distant past when airlines came to town, and soon left town.

Because Chamber of Commerce types here keep promising that this time an airline will commit to providing commercial air service if enough public money is spent to show that Salem is serious about making the airport suitable for it.

Time to dust off the Charlie Brown and Lucy football metaphor. (If you aren't familiar with it, every fall Lucy promises that she'll put her finger on the ball so Charlie Brown can kick it, and every fall Lucy pulls the ball away just as Charlie Brown thinks this time she won't do it.)

Now, there's a chance this time will be when commercial air service comes to Salem and stays in Salem. But likely the $2.4 million, which is just the beginning of what the City of Salem needs to spend on airport improvements and subsidies, will be lost and gone forever before too long.

The Salem Reporter has a story about this, "Salem City Council commits $2 million to airport terminal improvements, staffing." Here's some of what should worry taxpayers about what I and many others view as a dumb move.

Tourism and business groups spoke in favor of the spending, while a majority of commenters were opposed, citing climate and budgetary concerns. 

With funds approved, the airport would likely be ready for commercial service by September, months after business leaders have said interested airlines want to begin operations.

...Becktel said the next step after funding approval will be to sign an agreement with the airline, which remains unnamed due to the competitive nature of the airline industry.

The interested airline is a budget airline with ticket prices around $69 and $89 that intends to make Salem its west coast hub, according to Travel Salem President Angie Onyewuchi, who spoke at the meeting. 

...Becktel noted that the improvements would be the bare minimum to meet requirements, and not make for an optimal passenger experience. The airport would likely need more improvements in the future.

...Tom Hoffert, the chief executive officer of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, spoke in support of the project and said it would help tourists visit nearby wineries.

Mike Herron of Vips Industries INC., said the airport would put more “heads in beds” at the Grand Hotel in Salem, and allow business travelers to stay in Salem longer.

At the Jan. 9 meeting, more residents submitted public comments opposed to the airport than in favor, including six people against it who spoke at the meeting.

Several members of the local climate group 350 Salem, spoke against the airport and said the funds would be better spent improving shuttle service to existing airports in Portland and Eugene. 

The group asked the city to keep its Climate Action Plan in mind, and called the airport projections overly optimistic. Each wore a sticker with a red cancel mark over “FLY SALEM.”

So the nine City Council members, most of whom are progressives who claim to want Salem to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as called for by the Climate Action Plan they approved, just agreed to spend $2.4 million to bring large highly polluting commercial passenger planes to the airport.

Why? Because the Chamber of Commerce and Travel Salem want to make it easier for out-of-state people to visit nearby wineries, maybe spending time at a Salem hotel, but probably not -- since there are more attractive lodging options elsewhere in Northwest Oregon's wine country.

But, wow, we might get to be the West Coast hub for a budget airline that's probably destined to go out of business after sucking up the benefits of the $2.4 million the City Council has just bestowed on the unnamed airline.

Few people in Salem appear to want to subsidize another attempt at bringing commercial air service here. Yet City of Salem staff are for this; some in the business community are for this; so every member of the City Council dutifully went along with a project at odds with their own Climate Action Plan, and common sense, because whatever city staff and the Chamber wants, they usually get from the City Council.

When the unnamed airline ceases service in Salem after a year or two, I won't be shy in telling everyone who voted for this, "I told you so." Unfortunately, the homeless people who could have been helped mightily by the $2.4 million in general fund dollars won't be saying that to the City Council.

Because in this town those with the most money have the loudest voice. And that's who the City Council listens to most assiduously. 

Salem needs to get past "blah, blah, blah" about climate change

As 2022 draws to a close, I'm hoping that 2023 is when Salem's city officials get past what climate activist Greta Thunberg calls the "blah, blah, blah" approach to reducing the world's greenhouse gas pollution.

Meaning, lots of talk, very little action.

The Salem City Council has passed a Climate Action Plan. It includes these goals:

• By 2035, GHG Salem emissions shall be reduced to 50 percent of the citywide greenhouse gas emissions for the baseline year of 2016, and
• By 2050, Salem should be carbon neutral.

But the Climate Action Plan isn't being taken seriously by city staff and the City Council. We're still in the "blah, blah, blah" stage. Lots of talk, very little action. 

For example, there's an effort underway to bring commercial air service back to the Salem airport, even though this has been tried several times with no success. 

Since air travel is one of the worst things people can do, greenhouse gas pollution-wise, the notion of bringing commercial air service to Salem should have been rejected by city officials as soon as it was raised.

But no, this bad idea is stumbling onward. Fortunately, our local 350.org chapter has started a petition, Oppose Costly and Polluting Commercial Air Service in Salem. I urge you to sign it. It'll just take a minute or two.

In the November 28, 2022 issue of The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert has a terrific story, "A Vast Experiment: The Climate Crisis from A to Z." The theme of the letter "B" is blah, blah, blah. Here's what Kolbert said:

On September 28, 2021, at the Youth4Climate conference, held in Milan, Greta Thunberg took the stage. Sitting near her was the city’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, wearing a mask. Thunberg, who is five feet tall, could barely be seen over the lectern. She had removed her mask and was smiling.

“Climate change is not only a threat, it is above all an opportunity to create a healthier, greener, and cleaner planet which will benefit all of us,” she began. “We must seize this opportunity—we can achieve a win-win in both ecological conservation and high-quality development. . . . We need to walk the talk; if we do this together, we can do this.

“When I say ‘climate change,’ what do you think of?” she went on. “I think of jobs—green jobs.” This received a round of applause.

“We must find a smooth transition towards a low-carbon economy,” Thunberg said. “There is no Planet B. There is no Planet Blah—blah, blah, blah; blah, blah, blah.” Her listeners, including Sala, started to realize that they’d been had. The applause died down.

“Build Back Better—blah, blah, blah,” Thunberg continued.

“Green economy—blah, blah, blah.

“Net zero by 2050—blah, blah, blah.

“Net zero—blah, blah, blah.

“Climate neutral—blah, blah, blah.

“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders: words—words that sound great, but so far have led to no action,” Thunberg said. “Of course we need constructive dialogue, but they’ve now had thirty years of blah, blah, blah, and where has that led us?”

It was thirty years ago that the world’s “so-called leaders” gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the so-called Earth Summit. Everyone agreed that radical change was needed. To avert disaster, global CO₂ emissions, which were then running at around twenty-two billion metric tons a year, would have to be reduced, eventually almost to zero. How this would happen, no one really knew. Still, the goal of preventing “dangerous” warming was enshrined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which President George H. W. Bush cheerfully signed.

“Some find the challenges ahead overwhelming,” Bush said. “I believe that their pessimism is unfounded.”

A follow-up conference of the parties, or cop, took place in Kyoto in 1997. By then, annual global emissions had risen to twenty-four billion tons. After much back-and-forth, it was agreed that something had to be done. The Kyoto Protocol, an addendum to the Framework Convention, laid out specific emissions-reduction targets for countries to meet.

“I am both determined and optimistic that we can succeed,” Vice-President Al Gore told the diplomats gathered in Japan.

After Kyoto, global emissions kept on rising, only faster. By 2009, they’d climbed to thirty-two billion tons a year. That fall, President Barack Obama flew to Copenhagen for yet another conference of the parties—cop15. “I believe that we can act boldly, and decisively, in the face of this common threat,” he declared.

By 2015, emissions had increased to thirty-five billion tons a year. At that year’s cop—No. 21—held in Paris, it was decided that, at last, really and truly, it was time to get serious. “The decisions you make here will reverberate down through the ages,” the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, told the delegates. Nevertheless, emissions continued to rise. In the past thirty years, humans have added as much CO₂ to the atmosphere as they did in the previous thirty thousand.

At some point during all the “blah, blah, blah”-ing—it’s hard to say when, exactly—climate change ceased to be a prospective problem and became a clear and present one. Since Rio, the Arctic ice cap has shrunk by two-fifths. Greenland has shed some four trillion metric tons of ice, and mountain glaciers have lost six trillion tons. Heat waves are now hotter, droughts deeper, and storms more intense. In some parts of the world, the wildfire season never ends.

One conclusion to draw from this pattern is that the world isn’t going to avoid “dangerous” warming. Global leaders will continue to gather at cops—this year’s, in Sharm el-Sheikh, just concluded—and to speak loftily about “net zero” and “a low-carbon economy.” But nothing will change, and, as a result, everything will change. There will be large-scale crop failures. The Greenland ice sheet will start to collapse—it may already be collapsing—and, owing to sea-level rise in some places and desertification in others, large swaths of the globe will become uninhabitable.

This conclusion is not, however, the one that Thunberg chose to draw when she spoke at the Youth4Climate conference. “Right now we are still very much speeding in the wrong direction,” she told the crowd in Milan. “But, of course, we can still turn this around—it is entirely possible.

“The leaders like to say, ‘We can do this,’ ” she went on. “They obviously don’t mean it, but we do—we can do this. I’m absolutely convinced that we can.”

Or, as Thunberg might put it, Blah, blah, blah.

Peter Fernandez' retirement is good news for Salem

Peter Fernandez, the thoroughly sleazy Public Works Director for the City of Salem, announced he's retiring effective January 6, 2023. 

This is cause for joy among those of us who follow goings-on at City Hall closely enough to be aware of what a disaster Fernandez has been during the fifteen years Salem has had to put up with his lies, dissembling, and poor decisions.

It's remarkable that Fernandez wasn't fired long ago, given how poorly he's performed as Public Works Director. This shows that Salem is willing to put up with a lot of crap, so long as the crap-producer is part of the Good Old Boys/Girls Network.

Hopefully the new City Manager, Keith Stahley, will hire a replacement for Fernandez who is much better suited for the job -- ideally someone who isn't now a Public Works manager, since those people have the stench of Fernandez associated with them.

From what I've said so far, does it sound like I can't stand Peter Fernandez? I sure hope so, since that's exactly how I feel.

Here's nine blog posts that I've written about Fernandez' failings. The first one set the stage for my subsequent criticisms of Fernandez, so I'll share a fairly lengthy excerpt from that post.

Sad stump with flower memorial to needless killing of this U.S. Bank tree

(1) Outrage: the true story of Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings

This is a case study of how city government shouldn't work. 

Here the Public Works Director, Peter Fernandez, ignored the law, facts, expert advice, advisory committee recommendations, and lots of public testimony so he could keep a back-room verbal promise to the U.S. Bank president, Ryan Allbritton, to cut the five large, healthy, beautiful trees down. 

The extra-legal promise itself is bad enough. Worse, Fernandez made that promise two years before the bank started the required process of filing an application to remove the trees. 

Even so, Public Works Director Fernandez was all set to order that the trees be pruned, rather than removed, until bank president Allbritton reminded him of that "just between us" deal they'd made together. It didn't matter that Albritton was unable to give a single coherent reason why the trees needed to be killed.

After Fernandez spoke with the bank president, everything changed. 

Allbritton got an unusual second chance to argue his extremely flimsy tree-killing case. He lobbied city councilors, who weren't bothered by Allbritton's mention of the verbal promise.

Maybe because this is the way the City of Salem habitually does things under its current leadership -- working out deals with special interests behind the scenes, then going through a show of holding public hearings and issuing a formal decision.

Like I say throughout the report, outrageous. There's more juicy details in the 18 pages, of course.

Download Outrage - Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings

The report includes an opinion letter from my land use and environmental law attorney which demolishes (1) Public Works Director Fernandez' false claim that he was obligated by an ordinance to allow the trees to be cut down, and (2) the repeated inaccurate assertion by City staff that Fernandez' decision couldn't be appealed. 

(2) Why Salem's Public Works Director should be fired

(3) City Manager is OK with a developer illegally removing trees

(4) Salem City Council bamboozled by staff on Taybin Road property purchase

(5) Neighborhood association criticizes city officials for not enforcing tree ordinance

(6) City official issues tree removal permit 105 days after they were cut down

(7) Shady stuff associated with Salem City Council agenda item

(8) Devastating critique of Salem's Urban Forester program by a job applicant

(9) Key questions remain about Salem's botched response to toxic algae water problem

Help Salem Reporter fight City of Salem secrecy

I hate it when government officials try to hide important facts from the public. I especially hate it when the officials doing the hiding are employees of the City of Salem. You know, the agency whose slogan is "At Your Service."

But for sure not when the folks at City Hall are trying to cover something up. Then their unstated slogan becomes "Good Luck Learning What We Did, Sucker."

That's the position the inquiring journalists at the Salem Reporter are in. For quite a few months they've been trying to learn why Steve Bellshaw, who used to be a deputy police chief, walked away with $53,000 in taxpayer money after being put on administrative leave.

Below is a copy of a column by Les Zaitz, the Salem Reporter editor, that explains how city officials are trying to keep a veil of secrecy over what should be public knowledge. He's seeking $4,000 in donations from the community to pay for what the City of Salem is charging for a public record request.

Yes, that's an outrageous amount for documents that should be provided for free. But I happily donated $100 to the cause, because I've had similar bad experiences trying to get information from city officials. They use very high public record request fees to discourage people from learning what's going on at the City of Salem. 

As Les Zaitz put it in his lead sentence, "The city of Salem is trying to grind us down." I've felt the same way numerous times, Les. Hang in there. Help is coming. Please donate what you can to the Salem Reporter public record fund. A donate link is in the column. Or click here.

 

 

 

 

The city of Salem is trying to grind us down and we need your help to push back.

For months, Salem Reporter has dug into circumstances around the departure of a top city official.

Steve Bellshaw was a deputy police chief who left in February. He had been accused of misconduct serious enough to warrant putting him on administrative leave three months earlier.

The city cut him a deal – allowing Bellshaw to retire, paying him an unearned $53,000 in public funds and pledging to keep quiet about it all.

Since then, Salem Reporter has been seeking the truth about this. The city has tried to keep it all under wraps, blocking access to public records and ignoring legitimate questions.

We haven’t given up. We sought one order seeking disclosure of records but Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson sided with the city. Since then, Salem Reporter did win Clarkson’s order to disclose information about Bellshaw’s administrative leave. And now the city is under direction to produce some records about its terminated investigation of Bellshaw.

This all takes time and it’s a big lift for a small news team.

Now, we encounter a new obstacle.

In the face of continuing questions from Salem Reporter, the city’s strategic initiatives manager provided some answers in a statement. Courtney Knox Busch said there was no allegation of criminal conduct, that finding an investigator had failed, and that the law wouldn’t allow the city to release records.

Salem Reporter asked for documents that backed up these claims. We also invited city officials to talk to us about narrowing the scale while getting relevant documents. No city official took us up on that offer.

Instead, the city said it would cost Salem Reporter an estimated $4,225.90 to get those records. And there is no assurance the city would disclose whatever it found.

‘Negatively impact’ the city

The law allows government to waive fees in the public interest, but city officials say more harm than good comes from providing records at no cost.

 “The time, expense and interference with the business of the city to compile and provide the records is substantial and outweighs the benefit to the public,” the city explained. Taking time to pull together the records would “negatively impact the city staff’s ability to meet the needs of other customers.”

The city broke down the costs, showing it would take about 44 hours of staff time to find the records. The city estimated its IT crew would need seven hours – nearly an entire work day – to find records. It estimated its police staff would need the equivalent of two work days. Even the city recorder’s office would have to put in five hours.

That seems remarkable given that Busch’s statement was all of four paragraphs. If she didn’t have documents readily at hand on which to base her statement, what did she rely on?

A $155 million budget

But the bill, perhaps unintentionally, revealed that far more people in City Hall have been involved in the Bellshaw matter than has been disclosed. The city said people in five departments would need to round up records. Until then, the city has been insisting city records about the Bellshaw matter were all in the hands of city attorneys and privileged.

The burden of the $4,000 on the city needs to be put in context. The city is running on a $155 million general fund budget ­– $5 million more than last year. The city employees who would work on this request already get paid by the city. And the budget is robust enough that the city plans to spend $250,000 on something called “organizational enhancement.”

Why not enhance public trust in City Hall and give up the documents without such a fuss?

Here’s the bottom line.

The city has fought release of records at every step of the way. The city has implied that it is prohibited from releasing records and that’s proven not true. At one time, the city slowed its handling of a request by claiming it didn’t understand what we wanted when we asked for copies of city emails. We’re still waiting for those.

Now, the city is taking a new tactic to keep us out of its business – the public’s business.

City officials want to load us up with fees, probably betting that a small news operation can’t afford the tab and we’ll give up.

The city is only half right.

Not giving up

As a local news outfit, we can’t afford to write a $4,000 check to the city of Salem.

But we’re not giving up. That’s because of you.

In recent weeks, we have heard from many of you that you want more transparency from the city. We don’t engage in these fights because we have little else to do. We pursue the facts because that’s what you count on us to do.

So, now we need your help.

We’re asking you to donate to cover that $4,000 city fee. Nothing would speak louder to the city manager, the city councilors and the new mayor about what the community expects from those at Salem City Hall.

We need you to become a citizen watchdog to help pry open those city files.

Our pledge is that every dollar will be used for public records costs.

To help, you can use our online donation tool – DONATE LINK – to add to our Disclosure Fund. If you want your donation to be anonymous or you have questions, send me a personal note at [email protected] If you prefer a check, mail: Salem Reporter, 72585 Middle Fork Lane, Bates OR 97817.

Just 40 giving $100 gets us there.

We’ll keep you posted on how the effort is going and whether we’ll hit the goal. I am betting we will. Who wants to be first?

Les Zaitz is editor and CEO of Salem Reporter. Reach him by email at [email protected]

Community Improvement Bond discussed at Salem City Club

In next Tuesday's election Salem voters will decide the fate of the $300 million Community Improvement Bond. Last Friday the City Club had an informational program about the bond featuring new Mayor Chris Hoy and Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Hoffert.

It was more interesting than I thought it would be. But then, my life is pretty routine, so I have a low bar when it comes to what I find interesting.

Quite a few City of Salem staff were there, including the recently appointed City Manager Keith Stahley. But they couldn't advocate for the bond, leaving that up to Hoy, Hoffert, and a slide presentation. I don't live in the city limits, so can't vote on the bond. My attitude is that it deserves a half-hearted "yes" vote.

The bond measure is heavily tilted toward street improvements. Sidewalks also, but streets get the bulk of the $157 million in that category.

There's something for everybody, more or less, in the bond measure. Which means that it won't be transformative, as would be the case if Salem went all out toward becoming a Green city with markedly reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead, Hoffert said that not everybody got everything they wanted, but no group said we weren't listened to. OK, probably politically wise, though by no means daring. 

I got to ask the first question from the audience. It went like this: "Since medical calls account for the vast majority of Fire Department calls [75% or so] rather than fires, why are large engines sent out on medical calls, leading to wear and tear on them, rather than using right-sized vehicles for medical calls?"

I asked this because $26 million is in the bond to replace all of the Fire Department's engines, which have reached the end of their useful life. The response from a department employee (didn't get his name) was what I'd heard before. 

They send out large fire trucks to medical calls because it isn't known what sort of call the truck will have to go to next. So by having a truck at a medical call, maybe it will be able to get to a vehicle accident or whatever quicker than if the truck was back at the station. I found this response logically unsatisfying, since it seems just as likely that a fire truck at the station could get to a fire more rapidly than a truck occupied with a medical call.

Someone else asked if the department had looked into electric engines. Answer: yes, but electric fire engines are very early in the electric vehicle process.

The slide above shows that if the bond passes, the $300 million will be spent from 2023 to 2032. So don't expect to see instant change. For example, new dog parks (a subject close to the heart of my canine-loving wife) won't begin to happen until 2026. 

After the meeting I asked city staff when paving the decrepit parking lot at the Minto Brown dog park would happen. The pleasing answer was early on, since paving is straightforward and simple.

I also asked City Manager Stahley how bond interest forecasts were estimated, since bonds will be issued about every three years for a portion of the $300 million. He pointed me to a financial guy at the meeting, who told me that basically they assume a mid-range interest on the bonds. Not too high, not too low, somewhere in the historical middle.

Lastly, this slide shows how the City of Salem is able to keep the amount Salem citizens pay for bond measures constant, even with the new $300 million bond. 

Salem's $300 million bond measure deserves a half-hearted "Yes" vote

I don't live in the city limits, so won't be voting on the $300 million infrastructure bond measure on the November ballot. But if I was able to vote on it, I'd sigh, grit my teeth, roll my eyes, and then reluctantly mark "Yes."

The Salem Reporter has an informative story about the bond measure. 

Salem voters next month will decide whether to fund repairs to streets and build new roads, replace aging fire trucks, improve parks and buy land for branch libraries and affordable housing over the next decade.

The city is seeking voter approval in the November general election for a $300 million infrastructure spending package, which would be paid for by issuing bonds paid back with property taxes over the next 30 years.

Salem has other bonds from older projects that are being paid off, so the measure won’t raise property tax rates if it passes. The city’s bond rate would remain at $1.20 per $1,000 of assessed value for Salem property owners.

If the measure fails, property owners would see their city bond tax rate fall to 75 cents per $1,000 of assessed value as voters continue to pay off other city projects.

One reason -- and its a big one -- why I half-heartedly support the bond measure is that it contains money to pave the parking lot of the Minto Brown dog park. Laurel, my wife and frequent user of the dog park with Mooka, our Husky mix, has worked to have this happen, so she'd be irked at me if I urged a "No" vote.

This personal anecdote points to both a strength and weakness of the bond measure: it has something for everybody, but fails to deliver on much-needed improvements in Salem. Meaning, it reflects what bothers me about the Salem City Council and city officials.

They're overly cautious about rocking the boat, even when the boat needs some rocking to get rid of serious problems sloshing around. The bond measure could have been transformative in its effect on Salem. 

Instead, it's better than nothing, yet nowhere near as good as it could have been.

The Salem Reporter story says, "The bulk of the money, $157 million, would be spent to repair bridges and roads, improve signs, add pedestrian crossings and bike lanes on some streets and repair sidewalks." 

In an August post, the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger, who has a keen eye for policies that sound like they're doing something to deal with the key 21st century problem, climate change, yet actually aren't, had some cogent observations about the bond measure.

Here's some excerpts from "A Disappointing Bond Proposal - Council Work Session August 15." 

Framed up as an ostensibly responsible thing for "maintenance" and "community improvement," the proposed City bond doesn't really meet our moment. It looks to a backlog of wants and needs, formulated in largely 20th century modes, but does not do enough to sift the true needs from legacy wants, and then to identify what our 21st century needs might be.

...All in all the project list and total package is not very inspiring. 

At the same time, as we see in the diminution and reconfiguration from Build Back Better to Inflation Reduction Act, making the sausage is rarely inspiring. If the proposed bond package isn't inspiring, it's not terrible either. Maybe this was the best that was possible. But enough seams, gaps, and questions remain in it to make boosting for a hard sell.

The way the City is selling it as something for walking and biking is mainly puffery and does not inspire confidence. The transportation section leads in the City marketing materials with a bicycle and pedestrian category. But that's misleading, suspicious even, and evidence the City is doing a little bit of the bamboozle.

...The State Street project is $13 million for four blocks. It's not at all mainly a bike/ped project. It's a remodel for a "complete street" and a 4/3 safety conversion, and should be categorized instead as an "Urban Upgrade."

The Pringle Creek Path is a parks project, and belongs in the parks section.

That the McGilchrist project lacks a full set of protected bike lanesshows the City is not trying very hard. 

The evidence for strong walking and biking projects is considerably weaker than the City's rhetoric suggests.

...The whole doesn't look like anything designed to make meaningful progress on our climate needs. Sure, contemporary "urban upgrades" include sidewalks, bike lanes, and crosswalks, but these are generally legacy, 1980s style paint-only bike lanes and they are what the law requires on rebuilds anyway.

There's not a lot of "above and beyond," and the City is trying to position the bond as if it were full of "above and beyond" for walking and biking. It meets the minimum, but they want to say it is the maximum. It may not qualify as outright dishonest, but they are spinning when they could be concretely doing more.

So there's good reason for liberal environmentalists to view the bond measure as deserving of a "No" vote, and also good reason for conservative small-government types to view the bond measure as wasteful spending.

It probably will pass, since there's no organized opposition to it. But Salem could have done a lot better with the $300 million. 

My pet peeve is that the bond measure contains $26 million to replace Salem's entire fleet of fire trucks. This includes those giant trucks that race around town going to medical calls, which account for the vast majority of fire department calls.

It's ridiculous that the City Council didn't demand that the Salem Fire Department conduct a serious investigation into alternatives to the current highly inefficient way medical calls are responded to. A big reason why Salem's fire trucks are worn out is that they're rarely used to fight fires, and mostly used for medical calls.

Excessive force by Salem police officer costs city $1 million

Justice has been served Eleaqia McCrae, who was shot in the eye and chest with rubber bullets by Salem police in May 2020 during a Black Lives Matter protest.

Today the Salem Reporter published a story about the $1 million awarded McCrae by a jury after she filed a lawsuit.

The city of Salem will have to pay a protester just over $1 million because police violated her constitutional rights when they shot her with rubber bullets at a local protest two years ago.

A federal jury on Friday, Sept. 30, unanimously ruled in favor of Eleaqia McCrae, 22, who sued the city over its handling of a protest against police violence on May 31, 2020. She said in her suit that she was left with permanent eye damage after an officer shot her twice with rubber bullets, hitting her chest and eye.

Following a trial last week in the U.S. District Court of Oregon, the jury unanimously found Salem Police Department officer Robert Johnston used excessive force when he shot McCrae, violating her Fourth Amendment rights.

For sure, this wasn't a shining moment for the Salem Police Department. In September 2020 I wrote a blog post about what sure seemed to be an attempted cover-up by the department.

Here's some excerpts from Rubber bullet lawsuit undermines credibility of Salem Police Department. 

I'm changing my mind about the Salem Police Department. By and large, I've believed that Salem has been fortunate to have a well-run department marked by honesty, integrity, and a willingness to admit mistakes.

Sure, the department's actions during this year's Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd were questionable at best and outrageous at worst. Using tear gas and playing nice with armed counter-protesters put chinks in the Police Department's "well-run" reputation.

To me those chinks widened to a crevasse after I read the front page story in today's Statesman Journal by Whitney Woodworth, 
"Protester sues city, Salem police for civil rights violations, shooting her in face, chest with rubber bullet."

...Contrast those allegations in the lawsuit with what Police Chief Jerry Moore said in a June 24 after-action report to Steve Powers, the City Manager. The following is part of a description of what happened on May 31, the day Eleaqia McCrae was shot by rubber bullets.

At 2158 hours, Lt. VanMeter authorized the use of CS gas and other munitions on the unlawful protestors and those launching items at the officers. LRAD announcements continued to be given. While we are not aware of any injuries to those in the crowd due to police actions, we were able to assist one female protestor who officers witnessed being struck in the head by a brick thrown by another protestor/rioter. After providing medical assistance and ensuring she was safe we had her transported to the hospital via ambulance.

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.

Now we know that Eleaqia McCrae was indeed seriously injured by Salem police during the protest. Yet Chief Moore, now retired, claimed otherwise in his after-action report filed more than three weeks after the protest. 

Whether Moore and other police department leaders were lying or incompetent is an open question. Regardless, this episode shows that when the Salem Police Department claims something is true, some healthy skepticism is in order.