Salem Political Snark

Letters to editor trash sleazy Creekside Golf Course water rate deal

Way to go, Lois Stark and Ann Bornholdt! I really like your letters to the editor about the Creekside water rate giveaway that have popped up on the Statesman Journal web site. 

Hopefully your letters (see here and here) will make it into the print edition of the newspaper soon. I'll boldface the most pleasingly snarky portions of what you said.

Salem residents not responsible for golf course's woes

Nice try, Kent Hunsaker and Jerry Bennett, but it ain’t gonna fly!

No matter how much these guys tried to sugarcoat the issue in their guest opinions, lowering the water rates for the Creekside Golf Club amounts to a bailout at the expense of all others in the city of Salem.

The Creekside Golf Club is a private golf course. If it can’t remain solvent, then let their members pay to subsidize it. Why should my water bill increase so they can play golf?

Yes, the golf course is a critical watershed for the city. So if the golf course must close, then let’s either make the course public or have a small development there which carefully protects the natural habitat and wildlife.

If the Salem City Council votes to increase our bills for the Creekside Golf Club members, then I will withdraw 65 cents each month from my bill and urge others to do the same. My hard earned 65 cents will be donated to Marion-Polk Food Share and Family Building Blocks. These two non-profits provide needed services to families who could never afford to play a day of golf.

Lois Stark
Salem

------------------------------
Creekside water rate a sweetheart deal that benefits developer, not city

I hope all members of the Salem City Council — current, ongoing, incoming and potentially future — took note of the overwhelmingly negative response to the proposed increase in water rates for most citizens in order to subsidize a lower rate for a private club.

There is so much wrong with this proposal I can’t keep my objections within the word-count limits of a letter to the editor.

Who the heck are the members of the advisory committee who thought this was a good idea? Suffice to say, I took the opportunity to vote for the challenger in the most recent City Council elections in order to vote against just this kind of sweetheart deal that benefits a well-connected real estate developer at the expense of the rest of the city.

For those concerned with the loss of 50 jobs, it sounds like the developer, Larry Tokarski, is already planning to shut down the golf course to build houses on the site no matter what happens with the proposal.

City Council members: Vote down this turkey!

Ann Bornholdt
Salem

Water rate giveaway to Creekside Golf Course affirmed by City of Salem committee

Oh, goodie! I'm so excited that the Creekside Golf Course water rate scandal, a.k.a IrriGate, is continuing on its special-interest-kiss-up backroom-dealmaking course.

This will give local political junkies like me even more raw material for snarkiness.

When politicians fail to realize their mistakes, doubling-down on a stupid decision, it's entertaining to watch how far down the Rabbit Hole they will go before thinking, "Oh, shit, we should have turned around before hitting the slimy bottom."

Here's a report I've gotten from a reliable source on today's Water-Wastewater Task Force meeting, the group that's been determined to foist a $600,000 water rate increase on other water users so the Creekside Golf Course can get a $60,000 annual water bill reduction that Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett somehow believes is crucial if the private golf course is going to survive.

The Task Force is not backing down on the 30% reduction in rates for “irrigators.” It is going to be worked into the overall rate increase proposal that goes before the Council at a public hearing still scheduled for October 10th [Note: my source had September 10, but that's a Saturday, and previously the word was that the City Council would discuss and vote on this at their October 10 meeting]. Chuck Bennett did ask that the proposal for the Council be provided with and without the 30% reduction for irrigators.

Bennett really got worked up at the end of the meeting about what he sees as unfair criticisms of this. Bennett is now framing it as a flood control issue — Creekside needs the water rate reduction so the golf course remains as a basin for rainwater.

Hopefully the Council is allowed to vote on the 30% reduction issue separately from the rest. Councilor Brad Nanke is already a “no” vote. Councilors McCoid and Bednarz both have actual conflicts of interest and should not vote (McCoid because he is a Creekside homeowner and golf club member, and Bednarz because he is an “irrigator”).

Bennett recused himself from the August 11th vote so you would expect he would do that again (based on the fact that he works for the school administrators association that gets a lot of its revenue from the Salem-Keizer School District, a major irrigator).

That only leaves five. If Councilors Andersen and Dickey vote “no” along with Nanke it will be a 3-3 tie and the motion will fail. That would be interesting.

Here's my previous posts on IrriGate:

Crony capitalism on display in Creekside Golf Course water rate giveaway

Follow the money: Creekside Golf Course "IrriGate" scandal

More disturbing revelations about Creekside Golf Course water scandal

More disturbing revelations about Creekside Golf Course water scandal

OK, Salem's IrriGate scandal isn't Watergate quality, and I'm no Woodward or Bernstein, but this tale of crony capitalism and special-interest deal making at City Hall still is fascinating to dig into and report on.

Following up on Tracy Loew's initial reporting in a Statesman Journal story about how a City of Salem advisory committee voted to recommend that Creekside Golf Course get a $60,000 water rate break, a fellow citizen activist has shared some juicy tidbits with me about how this potential $600,000 giveaway to Creekside and other large irrigators came about. 

(The outrage is magnified by the fact that ordinary water users will have their rates raised to pay for the $600,000 irrigator rate reduction if it is approved by the Salem City Council.)

Below is a transcript this person made of part of the audio recording of the July 14 meeting of the City's Water/Wastewater Task Force. The twelve members include four Salem city councilors: Brad Nanke, Chair; Warren Bednarz; Chuck Bennett; and Jim Lewis.

Peter Fernandez

Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, tells the committee that he met with Steve McCoid, another city councilor, prior to the Task Force meeting. In this "pre-meeting," McCoid came up with another option for giving the Creekside Golf Course a water rate reduction.

McCoid lives in the Creekside development, and is a member of the golf course.

So McCoid's action raises ethical issues, considering that he is lobbying for a rate cut intended to help the golf course stay open, which both helps McCoid continue to play golf right next door, and also would help his home's property value -- since the golf course is an amenity for the Creekside neighborhood where he lives.

Here's what Fernandez told the Task Force at its July 14 meeting. I've boldfaced key parts of what Fernandez said. 

Fernandez: I want to preface by saying that we did lay out some options. This is an issue that came to us really two years ago about the issues relating to the irrigation rate specifically related to the issues out at Creekside. We promised that we would look at it. We’ve laid out the options here. All options have pluses and minuses.

There is one additional piece of information. Councilor McCoid is the Council President and resident at Creekside and member of the [Golf] Club [and] is very interested in this issue. So we had a pre-meeting with him so we could fill him in.

He’s not allowed in the room because then we’d have a quorum. So he’d love to be here but we told him, no no you gotta go. But he came up … in discussing it he [McCoid] came up with another option, we conceptualized another option, where  we perhaps just lower the irrigation rate, the commodity rate a little bit, or some amount, and that actually is an idea beyond these options that actually has legs and we think it might be a very good way to go to address issues, so Deb will talk about that in the sheets, but I just wanna, in the interest of full disclosure, we did some brainstorming — we may have something.

Now, here's what's galling to those of us who value transparency in governmental decision-making.

City staff had prepared discussion papers for issues that the Task Force was going to discuss at the July 14 meeting and subsequent meetings. "Irrigation Cost Relief Options" was item A. I've made a PDF file of just the meeting agenda and this discussion paper. See:
Download WWWTF0714agenda_materials

The Public Works Department staff analysis obviously was prepared prior to the meeting. Also, prior to the pre-meeting Public Works Director Fernandez had with City Councilor McCoid. Only four possible options were listed for "the requested outcome of reducing the cost of irrigation water either to all customers or specifically to Creekside Golf Course." 

(1) Eliminate the Irrigation Classification and reclassify all accounts to a lower-cost classification.
(2) Reclassify Creekside Golf Course as commercial.
(3) Create a Golf Course classification with a reduced irrigation rate.
(4) Maintain the current classification system for now. 

The staff analysis (again, prepared prior to the meeting) didn't recommend any specific option, simply saying that the Task Force should choose one to be the preferred alternative for financial planning and rate proposal development.

But the minutes of the July 14 meeting that were included in a July 28 meeting packet reveal that McCoid's pre-meeting with Fernandez led to a hitherto undisclosed Option #5 being unanimously chosen by the task force for further examination. See:
Download WWWTF 072816 Full Packet

This option was sprung upon the Task Force on the spot by Fernandez, after his sitdown with Creekside Golf Course member McCoid. It maintains the current classification system and reduces the irrigation rate. 

The "Irrigation Cost Relief Options" were edited after the meeting to include Option #5. There's an Estimated Impacts section, and a Considerations section. Of course, at the July 14 meeting where Option #5 was selected by the Task Force, this information wasn't part of the staff analysis. 

Fernandez admitted that Option #5 was brought up by Councilor McCoid just prior to the Task Force meeting. "So what's the big deal?" you might be thinking.

Well, one big deal is that a city councilor who isn't a member of the Task Force, but who lives in the Creekside neighborhood and is a member of the Creekside Golf Course, lobbied the Public Works Director just prior to the Water/Wastewater Task Force meeting to add another option to the four irrigator rate options that City staff had come up with. 

But to my mind, an equally large or larger big deal is what Peter Fernandez publicly said on an August 18 KYKN talk show hosted by Gator Gaynor. 

Fernandez and Gaynor talked about the water rate reduction for Creekside and other irrigators. Public Works Director Fernandez spins how this Option #5 reduction recommendation came to be in a highly misleading manner. Here's a transcript I made of the last part of the interview excerpt that was sent to me by my fellow citizen activist. Click on the audio file to hear the interview excerpt.
Download Peter Fernandez 8:18:16

I've added my comments about what Fernandez says in red. 

Fernandez: We looked at some of the changes that have been experienced in the way people use water, and felt that what we proposed to the task force was supportable from a cost of service methodology. 

Horseshit. You told the task force that Option #5, which was the one selected by the task force, came out of the fertile brain of Councilor Steve McCoid in your pre-meeting with him. 

Again I want to stress, and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity, Gator, that this was done scientifically, it was studying the finances and the way people use water.

No, this was done politically, like so much of what the Public Works Department does under Fernandez' crappy leadership. You did a favor for a city councilor who wanted to give the Creekside Golf Course a $60,000 rate reduction without making it look like this was a special favor for Creekside. 

It just so happened that Creekside gets a break, and it just so happened that Creekside proposed it, but this is not a special deal for Creekside Golf Course.

Actually, it is. Creekside gets a $60,000 a year water rate reduction because Councilor McCoid came up with a way to try to hide the special interest deal by lowering the rate for all irrigators, thereby saddling other water users with a $600,000 additional bill rather than a "mere" $60,000 bill.

Gaynor: That’s good to know, because a lot of people are looking at it as a possible favor for Creekside.

Fernandez: Right. If you want to characterize the favor that we did for Creekside, and I use that term in air quotes, is we looked at it, and showed it to the task force, and said here is something, if you want to recommend it, here’s something you can recommend that makes sense within the cost of service.

So if we did anybody a favor, we looked at it. I guess we could have said, we’re not even going to look at it, you know, forget it, we’re not going to look at it. But there is no favor to Creekside specifically in terms of the change in the irrigation rate. That is a supportable change that will affect the 670 irrigation customer accounts and the 40,000 accounts that are inside the city. Outside the city, the customers aren’t affected.

No favor to Creekside? Give me a f#@king break. Public Works Director Fernandez, you came up with the proposal after your cozy pre-meeting with Steve McCoid. The "we" you speak about wasn't the staff of the Public Works Department. It was you. Only after the task force meeting that followed the pre-meeting was any sort of written staff analysis shared with Task Force members.

I don't understand how Peter Fernandez continues to be the City of Salem Public Works Director. This Creekside episode shows how he operates in a shady, backroom dealmaking way. Just as he did with the 2013 U.S. Bank tree killing debacle that I documented in exquisite factual detail in my "Outrage" report. 

What I said in a 2014 blog post where I released the report sure echoes the Creekside Golf Course scandal today.

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.

Follow the money: Creekside Golf Course "IrriGate" scandal

In Salem these days, as elsewhere in the U.S., corporate fat cats don't have to carry around bags of cash to surreptitiously hand over to compliant politicians when they want a favor done for them. 

No, our campaign finance systems have gotten so screwed up, rich political donors can do their "bought and paid for" thing right out in the open, pretty much. Their money buys access to politicians, greasing the skids for favorable votes that can't be directly connected to the cash they donated to a campaign fund.

Case in point: Salem's Creekside Golf Course water rate reduction brouhaha. (I'm stealing the term IrriGate for this scandal from a Facebook poster who noted that WaterGate was already taken.)

As noted in my post, "Crony capitalism on display in Creekside Golf Course water rate giveaway," the golf course owners wanted to get a break on their City of Salem water bill, threatening that otherwise Creekside would go out of business, supposedly eliminating 50 jobs.

The City's Water-Wastewater Task Force has obligingly gone along, recommending that Creekside get a $60,000 reduction in its irrigation costs by lowering the rate for all large irrigators in Salem. If this plan is approved by the full City Council in October, a $600,000 hole in the City's water budget will be made up by increasing rates on other customers.

Since, as I said, usually it isn't possible to make a direct connection between (1) a politician's action that favors a big donor to their campaign fund, and (2) the money that the "fat cat" contributed, I'll simply share a (1) and (2) involving IrriGate.

(1) Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett is on board with the Creekside Golf Course getting a water rate reduction.
Bennett, who currently is a city councilor, not taking office as Mayor until 2017, is a member of the Water-Wastewater Task Force.

A Statesman Journal story about the Creekside water rate reduction contains a quote from Mayor-elect Bennett:

Some members of the committee supported Creekside’s request, but balked at extending the deal to all irrigators, which pay the highest of the city’s eight rates.

“It’s not unusual to try to save or to create 50 jobs in this town forgiving taxes for years on end, for doing a whole variety of fiscal gymnastics to get them in,” said City Councilor Chuck Bennett, a committee member. “I’m not sure why in the case of a business like this we wouldn’t do the same kind of thing relative to this cost.”

(2) Larry Tokarski, one of the two owners of the Creekside Golf Course, is linked to a major contribution to Chuck Bennett's campaign fund. 
I wrote about this last May in "Chuck Bennett gets lots of love (and money) from homebuilder PACs." Here's excerpts from that post:

The Oregon Realtors Political Action Committee gave Bennett $5,000. That was topped only by the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, which gave Bennett $7,500. 

Hmmmm. I was surprised by the $7,500 contribution, because at first I naively thought that a group with "affordable housing" in its name was concerned with homelessness, low-income housing, and such.

And I wasn't aware that groups like this had $7,500 to throw at Mayor candidates -- especially Bennett, who isn't known as an avid advocate in this area. Thus my next step was to click on the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition name in the ORESTAR report.

I learned that the people associated with the committee share the address of the Homebuilders Association of Marion and Polk Counties.

In fact, the treasurer of the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, Mike Erdmann, is the CEO of the Marion/Polk Homebuilders Association.

So that cleared up the mystery of the Affordable Housing Coalition. It is the political arm of the Marion/Polk Homebuilders Association.

Given all the concern about homelessness and affordable housing these days, I suspect the homebuilders folks thought Affordable Housing Coalition would sound better than Pave the Planet and Enrich Already Rich Builders PAC. 

Looking through the records of the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, I noticed a big $14,525 contribution to the Coalition from a similarly-named group, Oregonians for Affordable Housing. Also, that the Affordable Housing Coalition had given $5,000 to Salem City Councilor Warren Bednarz' re-election campaign against challenger Sally Cook.

So my next question was, who the heck is Oregonians for Affordable Housing? The name sounded like a big-hearted liberal group dedicated to helping low-income people. Of course, the reality was way different.

Oregonians for Affordable Housing hangs out at an address next door to the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition.

Which turns out to be the address of the Oregon Home Builders Association. So all these cozy political action committee relationships got me making up lyrics to an updated sort of old Beatles song.

"I am Chuck Bennett, who am supported by the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, who am the Homebuilders Association of Marion and Polk Counties, who am supported by Oregonians for Affordable Housing, who am the Oregon Home Builders Association, and we are all one... in Political Action Committee'ness; also, we are the walrus."

Oh, but wait, I'm not quite done, because I'd noticed that the Mid-Valley Affordable Housing Coalition, a.k.a. the Homebuilders Association of Marion and Polk Counties, had given $7,500 to the Salem Chamber of Commerce's Build Jobs PAC in October 2015.

Naturally I had to click on over to the Build Jobs PAC to see what was happening there. This caught my eye: a $5,000 contribution from Mountain West Investment (the Tokarski company which is building the South Block Apartments on the old Boise Cascade property, a beneficiary of generous tax breaks from the City of Salem). 

On the same day the $5,000 Mountain West contribution came in, April 12, the Build Jobs PAC donated the same amount to the three candidates endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce: Chuck Bennett, Mayor ($3,000); Jan Kailuweit, Ward 1 City Councilor ($1,000); Warren Bednarz, Ward 7 City Councilor ($1,000).

So, yeah, Chuck Bennett is tied into a weird and wacky complicated campaign finance world of homebuilding political action committees who are supporting Chamber of Commerce candidates. There's more, of course -- such as another $5,000 Mountain West contribution to the Build Jobs PAC -- but my brain couldn't handle any more digging into ORESTAR reports.

Complicated stuff. Which is how the "fat cat" class wants it. Make it difficult to connect the dots between (1) and (2), actions by elected officials and big contributions from wealthy political donors. 

As the saying goes, "I've reported, you decide."

(1) Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett is on record as supporting a big water rate reduction for the Creekside Golf Course. The Creekside Golf Course is owned by Larry Tokarski. (2) On the same day Tokarski's Mountain West Investment company gave $5,000 to the Salem Chamber of Commerce's Build Jobs PAC, three candidates endorsed by the Chamber got a total of $5,000. Chuck Bennett got $3,000 of that.

Those are the dots. Feel free to connect them, or not, as you like.

Crony capitalism on display in Creekside Golf Course water rate giveaway

There's so much wrong with the City of Salem's planned $600,000 reduction in water costs for all high-volume irrigators -- a roundabout way of saving the Creekside Golf Course $60,000 a year -- that it almost has a delicious rightness to it. 

Meaning, hopefully this travesty-in-the-making will wake up Salem's citizenry to what has been obvious to those who closely watch goings-on at City Hall.

Crony capitalism is alive and well in Salem, but it should be dead and gone. Here's how Wikipedia describes it:

Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism. Crony capitalism is believed to arise when business cronyism and related self-serving behavior by businesses or businesspeople spills over into politics and government, or when self-serving friendships and family ties between businessmen and the government influence the economy and society to the extent that it corrupts public-serving economic and political ideals.

Thanks to Statesman Journal reporter Tracy Loew, we know what sleazy machinations are going on in the City of Salem's little-known "Water-Wastewater Task Force." Two related August 14 stories tell the disturbing tale.

Here's excerpts from "Creekside Golf Course wins water rate cut"  (a somewhat misleading headline, because the rate cut still has to be approved by the Salem City Council at an October 10 meeting)

Salem’s residential water rates would rise an average of 65 cents per month next year to accommodate a rate decrease for irrigators under a plan approved Thursday by a city water advisory committee.

The deal was reached in response to a request from Creekside Golf Course, the city’s largest irrigator.

Creekside’s owners, developers Larry Tokarski and Terry Kelly, said that without a rate cut, the course would fold, taking about 50 jobs with it.

“The reality is here that if the water rates are not changed significantly, the course will close. That’s a fact,” golf club member Kent Hunsaker told the committee, which advises Public Works Director Peter Fernandez.

Some members of the committee supported Creekside’s request, but balked at extending the deal to all irrigators, which pay the highest of the city’s eight rates.

“It’s not unusual to try to save or to create 50 jobs in this town forgiving taxes for years on end, for doing a whole variety of fiscal gymnastics to get them in,” said City Councilor Chuck Bennett, a committee member. “I’m not sure why in the case of a business like this we wouldn’t do the same kind of thing relative to this cost.”

Wow. Let's do some disentangling of the messy B.S. being reported on here.

The Creekside Golf Course would get a comparatively measly $60,000 a year reduction in its water bill if this Crony Capitalism proposal is approved by the City Council. (See option #5 on page 3 of this staff analysis.)

Yet Creekside owners Larry Tokarski and Terry Kelly, along with their willing City Hall crony, Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett (currently a city councilor), want us to believe that saving $60,000 a year in its irrigation bill will make the difference between keeping the golf course open, and closing it down.

Do Tokarski, Kelly, and Bennett really think Salem citizens are that stupid? Or do they just hope that nobody is paying attention during these lazy days of August? Well, I guess it could be both.

Anyway, crony capitalism has worked well for Tokarski and his Mountain West Investment company before. That's how he got the City Council to give him big tax breaks for developing prime downtown riverfront property. (See my 2014 post, "New City of Salem 'corporate welfare' giveaway to Mountain West Investment.")

Tokarski and other corporate bigwigs in Salem know how to play compliant city officials like the special-interest orchestra that they are. 

Give me a freaking break.

Creekside Golf Course isn't going to go under, taking those 50 jobs with it, just because the City of Salem decides not to save the golf club $60,000 a year on its water bill. Golf is in decline in the United States. Many fewer people are playing golf. Younger people aren't taking up the sport. Lots of golf courses are closing every year. See here and here. Excerpt:

The owner of the course, a development firm named, aptly, Stuck in the Rough, intends to turn the acreage into a residential development, an option available to resorts in prime residential areas. "What else could you do with the place?" Gorski asks. "Golf just didn't work. We couldn't get the young families to come out."

Even before it was shuttered last fall, the Malibu Golf Club decided to cut down drastically on its exorbitant water bill. "They were only watering the tee boxes and the greens," says former club pro Gene Hori. "The good news was you could hit these monster drives, because the fairways were like asphalt and the ball would skip forever."

Well, Malibu must have a smarter City Council than Salem does. Because the recommended water rate reduction for the Creekside Golf Course and other large irrigators will go into effect unless a public outcry stops it. 

What makes the $60,000 a year giveaway to Creekside even more ridiculous is that on the same day the Water-Wastewater Task Force met to recommend the water rate reduction (August 11), several members of Tokarski's team were telling the South Gateway Neighborhood Association about a plan to turn the golf course into a planned development. 

Reporter Tracy Loew told this side of the crony capitalism tale in her "354 homes proposed for Creekside Golf Course property" story.

Salem’s troubled Creekside Golf Club has a new general manager with a plan for turning a profit.

“Every day there’s rumors about Creekside,” said Danny Moore, who replaced general manager Tom Whitaker a month ago. “I’m trying to convince everybody, hey, this place is going to make it.”

At the same time, the property’s owner – developer Larry Tokarski – is moving forward with a plan to turn the entire 18-hole championship course into single-family homes.

On May 27, Tokarski sent the city of Salem a pre-development application for a 156-acre, 354-unit planned development.

“We’ve developed a plan here that represents construction of lots on what is the golf course on those areas we believe can be redeveloped to single family residences,” Mark Grenz, president of Multi/Tech Engineering, told the South Gateway Neighborhood Association on Thursday night.

Tokarski did not attend the meeting, but sent his lawyer, Allen Sorem, and Grenz to talk to the group.

The city encourages developers to meet with neighbors during the application process, Sorem said.

But the 60 or so who turned out were furious, at one point refusing to let the pair make their presentation.

Last April, the neighboring Creekside Homeowners Association filed a lawsuit against the golf club’s owners – Tokarski and developer Terry Kelly – saying they have a contractual obligation to keep the course open.

So it seems obvious that Tokarski is using the threat of closing the golf course, and of building 354 houses on the fairways/greens, to pressure the City of Salem into reducing Creekside's water bill. 

But the end of Loew's story shows how skeptical City officials and citizens in general should be of the $60,000 crony capitalism rate reduction (which turns into a $600,000 rate increase for non-irrigators after all is said and done).

“We’re a month or more out before we have enough information to finalize our [housing development] application and get it ready to go,” Grenz said.

In the meantime Moore, the club’s general manager, said he is working on increasing the club’s revenue, including booking events through 2017, while cutting down payroll.

“I’m showing two smart businessmen, hey, this can work out,” Moore said. “They’re smart men and they’re going to make their own decision.”

Outrageous. 

The Creekside Golf Course already is laying people off, at the same time Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett and other gullible city officials are claiming that the paltry $60,000 a year rate reduction for Creekside will save 50 jobs.

And golf course manager Moore makes clear in his final quote that Tokarski and Kelly, the Creekside owners, haven't made a commitment to keep the golf course open. They could get their $60,000 a year water rate reduction, benefit from it for a few years, and then close the course -- making it into a housing development. 

Like I said, Salem citizens/voters need to wake up and smell the City Hall crony capitalism that is taking money out of the pockets of this town's version of our 99% and making the 1% like Tokarski and Kelly even more rich and powerful.