Salem Political Snark

A tale of two Salem streets: McGilchrist and Court

Streets are kind of strange, when you think about it. Essentially they serve no purpose other than to get people and goods from here to there, usually by car or truck. 

So by themselves, streets are basically useless.

For example, unlike a park, you can't have a picnic on them. By and large streets are a highly visible and unattractive testament to our American addiction to vehicular travel.

But this isn't a given. At least, not now.

There's no reason why modern transportation planning has to be bound by the outmoded rules that have given us the ugliness of south Commercial Street and Lancaster Drive, to name a few examples of streets that genuflect to the Almighty Car and Truck rather than catering to the needs of human beings.

McGilchrist Street in south Salem is slated for a major makeover, paid in part by money from the $300 million City of Salem bond measure approved by voters last November. 

I haven't followed the McGilchrist project very closely, but the transportation savvy Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger has. You can read all of his posts on this subject via this link. His most recent post has some cogent criticisms of the McGilchrist project. 

Here's some excerpts from "Cost Escalation and Overengineering Swamp McGilchrist Project."

The project is too expensive and overengineered... You may recall drawings from the Federal grant application that showed some paint-only bike lanes.

The words "cycle track" in the cross section (at top, again) are doing a lot of unearned and heavy lifting. First off, in the drawing shown to the Bond Implementation Oversight Committee, it's more a multi-use path, not really a cycle track, which should be distinct from the sidewalk. Second, it does not appear to run the full length of McGilchrist.

At least in public, we have not yet seen a set of drawings with a strong bike lane treatment that is continuous. Note those paint-only sections. Any separation is only in segments. For such an expensive project we should get best-in-class bike lanes the whole length! There's more than a little bit of bikewashing here.

The travel lanes are really wide and will induce speeding. The street is not being built for urban speeds. It's more than a little stroady. With the 2 foot "shy lane" and 11 foot travel lane, there's really two 13 foot travel lanes and a nearly continuous 12 foot center turn pocket. Even allowing for freight trucks here, it is too big.

Finally there is the budget and cost escalation.

In February the Bond Implementation Oversight Committee saw the funding, and the budget just keeps ballooning, apparently doubling in a year or two.  This table (above) was not included in the agenda and packet the City posted for the February meeting, and the City is generally not publishing any notice of the meetings on the City calendar. It may be that the committee is structured not to require formal Notice. But with the magnitude of the bond, they should provide more transparency.

Wow. It sure looks like the McGilchrist project more than doubled in cost in a single year from $22 million to $51 million. That's a heck of a lot of money. Maybe there's a good reason for the $29 million increase in the project budget. Regardless, the City Council definitely needs to conduct more oversight about this.

On the positive side of street improvements, soon several blocks of downtown Salem's Court Street will become two way rather than one way. As a Salem Reporter story said, the current three travel lanes will be transformed into two lanes with left turn lanes.

The project aims to increase pedestrian, biking and other alternate transportation options to cars while maintaining parking in both directions.

And at a cost of just $500,000.

So the apparent $29 million cost increase for the McGilchrist project would pay for 58 similar "Court Street" conversions in other parts of the city.

This shows what a bargain bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure is compared to super-expensive traditional street improvements -- which mainly are aimed at speeding cars and trucks along, not making it easier for people to walk and bike.

Parking meters could be coming to downtown Salem

For at least ten years, maybe more, parking meters in downtown Salem has been a contentious issue.

Back in July 2013, Carole Smith, a downtown resident, property owner, and activist, collected more than 8,000 signatures, many more than were needed to put a Stop Parking Meters in Downtown Salem initiative on the May 2014 ballot.

This celebratory poster appeared on many downtown businesses.

Because when confronted with the widespread opposition to parking meters in Salem's core, the conservative-leaning City Council at first did away with all time limits on downtown parking, then reversed itself in the fall of 2014, instituting a 3-hour time limit. 

I wrote about this confusing back-and-forth state of affairs in one of my Strange Up Salem columns in Salem Weekly.

At its last meeting the city council initiated the return of a 3-hour time limit even though discussion of downtown parking was billed as “informational” on the agenda, with no action expected.

Yet without advance notice a motion suddenly appeared and was quickly passed unanimously. This violated the spirit, if not the letter, of Oregon’s public meetings law, which requires “that decisions of governing bodies be arrived at openly.”

Also, Council President Chuck Bennett falsely claimed that in 2013 the council had to adopt a citizen initiative to ban downtown parking meters and do away with 2-hour limits.

Actually the city council didn’t have to adopt the initiative language after 9,000 people signed a petition. Initiative backers wanted citizens to vote on the proposal in the May 2014 election.

Instead, the council voted unanimously to implement it immediately, choosing on its own to institute free unlimited parking.

Now the council has flip-flopped, unanimously moving to impose 3-hour limits from October through January after 30 downtown businesspeople submitted a petition asking for parking time limits to be reinstated, along with other changes.

Battling via successive dueling petitions is no way to form a viable downtown parking policy. This bouncing back and forth is absurd: 2-hour limit…parking meters on the way… no parking meters; no limits… 3-hour limit.

All in less than a year.

Now Salem Mayor Chris Hoy has said that he will make a motion at the Monday, February 27 City Council meeting "to direct staff to return to City Council with a plan to implement paid on-street parking in the downtown parking district and phase out the parking district tax."

Here's the reason as stated in the Discussion part of the motion:

Approximately ten years of parking studies indicate that downtown parking usage supports moving to a paid on-street system to manage demand. In 2020, 2021, and 2022 the Downtown Advisory Board’s Parking Fund Budget recommendations included a recommendation to transition to a paid on -street parking system.

Since 2013, the downtown parking tax has been capped at 2% annual growth or the CPI, whichever is less. The parking tax has not kept pace with the inflationary impacts to the costs of operating the downtown parking system. Additionally, the fund has lost significant revenue in recent years due to the closures of the Nordstrom, JC Penney, and TJ Maxx department stores, and pandemic impacts including an increase in remote working and online shopping habits.

A paid on-street system will improve parking demand management as well as stabilize and enhance the parking fund.

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? 

And I don't get why the current parking tax paid by downtown businesses is used to pay $200,000 a year to the Police Department to patrol the downtown area. That's crazy. I doubt that any other neighborhood in Salem has to pay for police services.

A Statesman Journal story says that in 2021 the downtown parking district collected $1.086 million in revenue.

Parking tax collections comprised $365,840 of the total revenue. Parking rent — fees that people pay for permitted spots —accounted for another $505,780.

Routine maintenance at the parkades cost a combined $355,490 in the 2021-2022 fiscal year. Police services to downtown cost $200,000. Trash disposal and container repair cost $36,630. A downtown clean team cost $75,000, and security services were $5,000.

Hopefully the staff report requested by Mayor Hoy won't simply be a City of Salem wish list, but will delve into the pros and cons of charging for downtown on-street parking. The Salem Climate Action Plan calls for this, since free parking encourages the use of cars and essentially is a subsidy for the most climate-unfriendly means of transportation.

Maybe this is finally the time for downtown parking meters to become a reality.

However, whether that reality is welcomed or cursed by downtown visitors and businesses will depend on how wisely the transition to parking meters is managed, and what benefits accrue from their introduction.

Who wants an Amazon store in the JC Penney building?

I admire fellow progressives with social media death wishes. In these politically correct times, it took some guts for Jim Scheppke to post this on the Salem City Council Facebook page, which leans decidedly liberal in its readership.

(Note: this page is just where City Council-related stuff is discussed; it has no official connection with the City Council.)

Of the 74 comments, there only were a few supporting an Amazon store.

Most were along the lines of Amazon being a corporate devil that makes drivers piss in bottles while working warehouse employees to death and killing retail stores all across the United States.

Personally, I think this is an idea worth exploring, though it is a long shot.

I suspect that most of the people who commented on Scheppke's post hadn't read the Strong Towns story. Here's how the story starts out. 

Last week brought the surprising news that Amazon intends to open a series of department stores. Yes, department stores. Remember those things? 

CNN Business reports that a number of new Amazon retail stores, starting in Ohio and California, will operate much like department stores, selling clothing, household items, electronics, and other products, and facilitating returns and exchanges. Amazon will strongly emphasize its own private-label products, and these stores will occupy smaller footprints than conventional mall anchors: closer to 30,000 square feet than 100,000.

It seems counterintuitive that the mall killer, the company that brought on-demand, two-day delivery of nearly anything under the sun to millions of people, would follow in the footsteps of its vanquished enemies by opening brick-and-mortar stores. Department stores have long been a waning presence in U.S. retail, from 14.5% market share in 1985 to 2.9% today.

But there are clear reasons why Amazon sees this as a strategic move. And those reasons are worth understanding, even if you have no love lost for Amazon itself (and I think it's safe to say that here at Strong Towns, we don't).

Me, I'm a progressive who believes in strong towns also. But I'm perfectly willing to admit that unlike the Senior Editor for Strong Towns who wrote the story, I do love Amazon. 

I've had Amazon Prime for as long as it was offered as a paid way to get free shipping on most Amazon purchases. Over the years I've used Amazon more and more. Now that Amazon has a warehouse in Salem, I'm thrilled when stuff I've ordered comes even faster.

It's just so damn convenient to buy from Amazon. Rather than drive all over town looking for an obscure item, I fire up Amazon on my laptop, search for the item, and bingo! -- it's in my hands in a couple of days. 

So I probably wouldn't do much shopping at a physical Amazon store even if one were to be built in Salem one day. However, a lot of people do enjoy walking around a store. By and large they're called women. Thus since Amazon is going to be a major force for the foreseeable future, cities like Salem might as well embrace Amazon, warts and all.

The Strong Towns story says that Amazon isn't looking to put stores in existing malls, which usually are on the edge of a town. Instead, they want to locate them in areas with a lot of pedestrians. Downtown Salem might qualify. 

Since an Amazon store would only be about 30,000 square feet, this would leave a lot of room in the JC Penney building for other uses like local shops. Having something occupy that building sure seems better than having it vacant.

Several commenters on the story noted that a large grocery store is needed downtown. One person suggested that Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon, could occupy a floor of the JC Penney building. 

Anyway, I'm glad Jim Scheppke raised this idea. Amazon has been successful because it is meeting the needs of both consumers and business owners. A great many small businesses sell on Amazon. They couldn't survive without Amazon. Sure, Amazon deserves much of the criticism directed at it.

But this shouldn't stop Salem's Urban Development Department from telling Amazon that the City of Salem is interested in exploring the possibility of having an Amazon store in the JC Penney building. Maybe a better use for the building will emerge.

Yet maybe one won't.

Good news and bad news about Nordstrom building replacement

There's a lot to like about what's going to replace the Nordstrom building in downtown Salem, as reported in today's Statesman Journal story, "25.7M apartment, retail project replacing former Nordstrom building downtown."

Come April 2023, Salem can expect a multi-use housing project — known as Central City Apartments — in place of the former Nordstrom building downtown.

The $25.7 million endeavor includes demolishing the existing structure and replacing it with a five-story, mixed-use building consisting of 162 rental units, ground floor commercial space and approximately 32 on-site parking spaces.

Current Nordstrom building

The apartments are supposed to appeal to young people who can afford $1,000/month for a studio apartment or $1,300/month for a one-bedroom apartment. 

Ryan Schera, development manager with Deacon Development, said they anticipate tenants to be younger and more active, likely to walk or bike to and from work and use public transportation at the nearby bus mall.

I'm kind of skeptical about how many people who can afford these apartments are going to be fine with the limited on-site parking and will be eager to use the not exactly world-class Cherriots bus system, along with Salem's decidedly crappy bike paths that aren't suitable for commuting if you aren't a lycra-clad fearless advanced cyclist.

But this project is just the sort of housing environmentalists like me want to see in Salem: dense, centrally located, bicycle/mass transit friendly, limited car parking.

And I trust that the developers have done their market research, so likely there will be a decent demand for the urban-cool apartments.

Common areas for tenants will include a 24/7 TransitScreen in the lobby to show available commuting options; a rooftop deck with views of downtown Salem and amenities such as an outdoor grill, fire pit and lounge seating; a resident community room for gatherings; a pet area; a parcel storage system, and bike storage with a repair station and bike/dog wash.

Here's the downside, though. 

The original plan for the Nordstrom building was for a retail development. My own vision from 2018 was described in "Nordstrom space in Salem Center mall should become a 'town square.'"

The solid stark windowless brick external walls would need to be opened up. Some of the interior would be open to the sidewalk and street, though covered. Plantings, water features, art, and such would be used to create a vibrant space for people to sit, stroll, eat, listen to street musicians, relax, read.

Food trucks could be located in this part of the covered, yet open, town square. They'd periodically rotate with other food trucks to keep the dining options variable. There'd be a stage where events could be scheduled, plus open mic opportunities at certain times of the day or night.

The rest of the space would be enclosed. It could be "creative retail" with a street bazaar or Saturday Market feel to it. The second floor would be refashioned so a spiral walkway leads to it from the ground floor. Ideally the roof would be glassed in some fashion to make the second floor airy and light. 

Everything sold in the Town Square space would have to be Oregon-made, and preferably Salem-made. This would be a showcase for local creativity, talent, agriculture, brewing, and such. 

I readily admit that my vision may have been totally impractical. What I described was the sort of place that I'd want to visit, figuring that lots of other people would feel the same way.

No one wants to head to downtown Salem to gaze upon an apartment building. So what's going to replace Nordstrom isn't a general people magnet. It's appeal will be to a small number of individuals and couples who want to live downtown.

It's disturbing that the plan for a retail development was discarded because of the slim prospects for retail businesses in Salem's downtown. The Statesman Journal story says:

The Nordstrom store — located at 420 Center Street NE downtown — closed in 2018 and was purchased the next year when two west Salem residents teamed up with the Portland company Deacon Development, LLC.

At the time, buyers told the Statesman Journal they were considering tenants in the clothing, entertainment, fitness and office-space sectors. It was expected to become a multi-use retail space, according to past reporting, as opposed to the one store that previously occupied the approximately 60,000-square-foot building.

...Salem residents have been waiting since June 2019 for new announcements on the Nordstrom location. But the past two years have brought challenges, including major changes in the retail industry and impacts from the pandemic.

"The building has been vacant since early 2018 and has consistently been subject to vandalism, graffiti, loitering and camping," developers wrote in their request for a city grant exception. "Exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the retail market has significantly declined and is no longer a viable option for the foreseeable future."

Not good news. 

It'd be a shame if downtown Salem turned mostly into an entertainment district with restaurants and night spots, plus apartments catering to young people who want to live there. 

Maybe there's no way to restore downtown shopping.

Maybe the convenience of Amazon and strip malls elsewhere in Salem have led to a unstoppable decline in boutique stores in the Historic District.  Maybe visitors to downtown don't care about retail options; they just want to get some food and/or have a drink.

All I know is that my wife and I used to enjoy walking around areas in other cities with an appealing mix of unique shops, creative restaurants, and pleasant landscaping (or streetscaping). 

Currently downtown Salem lacks that sort of vibrancy.

And I doubt that building more apartment buildings in the area is going to help change that. Again, this might be the only option for the old Nordstrom and JC Penney buildings, given the decline in retail.

It just makes me sad to think of downtown Salem becoming heavy in eating/drinking places and apartment buildings, and light on interesting places to shop.

Carole Smith argues against restaurant tents in downtown parking spaces

Carole Smith is a downtown property owner and resident who sent me the following argument against restaurants being allowed to use downtown parking spaces for outdoor seating during the Covid pandemic.

A May 27 Salem Reporter story says this program is going to be permanent, with design standards for structures in parking spaces that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Smith makes some good points about whether this is fair to the downtown businesses who pay a parking tax, since restaurants are being allowed to use parking spaces that are supposed to benefit all businesses in the area, not just one industry.

Here's what Smith has to say. I made some edits to her piece to improve its readability. I'm pretty sure I preserved her meaning. 

As I was watching the news last night I watched a segment on “Salem Removes Homeless from City Parks." The reporter stated the "City Council decided the pandemic was over and the homeless no longer needed to social distance so they were being removed from city parks.”

Well, if that is true, the pandemic is over, then why do we still have 20% of our parking spaces downtown full of empty tents?  I have been watching the tents empty out for two months now. No one is using them. They sit empty. Why are they still allowed to block parking spaces?

Many folks do not realize the downtown businesses (except non-profits) pay a parking tax each year to the city to effectively “rent” the parking spaces downtown for their customers' free use. This tax normally totals around $500,000 annually. There are typically 500 businesses downtown with the vast majority located on the upper floors downtown.  

Last year the City gave grants to restaurants throughout Salem for free tents, tables, chairs, and heaters, and provided the use of the downtown parking spaces free of charge to the restaurants. Yes, the same parking spaces the city demands we pay $500,000 a year to save for our customers' use.   

Recently I did a Public Records Request for all business addresses in the parking district. Last year there were only 450 businesses. Nordstroms and Penneys are gone because City Council is clueless, so parking tax revenues will be considerably down this year.  

If you take the annual sales volume of the two large department stores in the downtown area (estimated at $20 million a year each) and add in all the small businesses averaged at $400,000 annual sales each, you have an annual gross sales in downtown of about $220 million.  

Divide $220 million by 1,100 parking spaces and you get $160,000 value per parking space. Assume 20% of downtown visitors use parking garages, and the value still is a hefty $128,000 per parking space. This shows the value of each parking space to the businesses who pay the tax.

Now, realize that the City of Salem has given restaurants the right to block parking spaces for their free tents. That is equivalent to taking away thousands of dollars of sales for all neighboring businesses who are going through the exact same pandemic pain.

Even if you don’t care about the fairness of this land grab to benefit just one industry at the expense of damaging all its neighbors, I have seen literally no evidence that restaurants spread Covid, none. Why did our city council jump on an unproven rumor instead of thinking this through?  

Well, it feeds into their desire for parking meters. For decades (I found staff reports on how much more income the city would collect as far back as 1980) the City staff and City Council have wanted to end the free parking in downtown to increase city income.  

It is still their desire for downtown. They don’t see struggling stores or opportunity for our community. They just see money that isn’t yet corralled in their coffers. Anything they can do to weaken businesses downtown they can hardly wait to implement.

Despite the Downtown Parking Tax being voted in by the full voting population of Salem for two purposes only -- a program of public parking and a program of downtown promotions (funding for a downtown organization to protect us from City staff and Council) -- the City has been systematically withdrawing any funds for downtown promotion, Christmas decorations, summer flower baskets, events, sidewalk sales, etc.

They have been taking funds for years to fund the Police Department budget shortfalls as downtown continues to pay the tax and gets nothing for their contribution.

If the pandemic is over for the homeless population, City Council should do the right thing and ask all restaurants to remove their tents (and other obstructions) from parking spaces and allow their neighbors to survive.  

I have asked City Council several times to have the tents removed, but not one city councilor responded to any of my emails. Crickets, nothing.  They don’t care about downtown or the citizens.  

Let's be clear.

We want all downtown businesses to survive and thrive, not one industry surviving at the expense of their neighbors' failure. If the pandemic is over for the homeless, it should be over for the free tents downtown also. You cannot have it both ways, City Council.

Almost 3/4 of downtown Salem trash receptacles to be removed

Sheri Wahrgren, the Downtown Revitalization manager for the City of Salem, wants to get rid of most trash receptacles in the downtown area -- 44 of the 61 currently in use. See:

Download Downtown Trash Receptacle Staff Report

Before we dive deeper into this messy move, let's agree on this: the current trash receptacles are ugly, hard to use, and deserve to be featured in The Museum of Dysfunctional Trash Receptacles -- which I dearly hope exists.

Carole Smith, a downtown resident and property owner, brought my attention to what Smith considers a trash travesty. Never one to mince words, here's how she described this issue to me in an email.

I was looking through the DAB [Downtown Advisory Board] agenda and found a staff report that they want to remove 44 of our 61 downtown garbage cans to save money. More trash on the sidewalk will not save downtown money, it will just make it look worse. No word on other cost savings they can make - like letting staff go. We don’t need all those garbage cans but WE DO need all those staff.

If restaurants customers are the main trash can users, why don’t they increase Parking Tax on restaurants with take out? This just seems like another bone they are throwing to restaurants.  

Janet Taylor hated that merchants refused to maintain the city’s plants in the city’s planters so she had the City give away all our planters (planted and blooming) to Keizer. She replaced them with the most hideous garbage cans and planters she could find. She took away over 80 planters and replaced them with 20 planters.

Now staff wants to do the same with garbage cans. Why should downtown be punished because Janet Taylor picked a dumb, dysfunctional design?

Ugh, this just feels like another nail in downtowns mostly-built coffin. One more nail amongst several. Staff still get their paychecks but what about services for the public who pay their wages, don’t we count?  Why do we need so many staff when they continually cut programs?

To add insult to injury, I told Chuck Bennett years ago that most cities negotiate free downtown garbage pick-up with their haulers when they renew their contract. They get their downtown garbage picked up free. Our city just charges the Parking District.

Hope this riles you up like it did me.

Well, I'm always eager to get riled up by stupid stuff done by the City of Salem. I wouldn't have called this blog Salem Political Snark if I'd wanted it to be a warm and fuzzy paean to what city staff are doing right. 

I agree with Smith that removing almost 3/4 of downtown trash receptacles doesn't mesh with what I've observed about human behavior. Namely, that most people want to do the right thing, but only if it isn't too difficult. 

Having several trash receptacles on every block makes it more likely that someone with something that needs to be thrown away will hang onto it for the short distance to a receptacle. This is the current downtown Salem trash receptacle status, as shown in the staff report.

By contrast, this is the proposed layout.

The map above seems trash receptacle-skimpy, but since this is my first foray into trash receptacle analysis of a downtown, I will admit that my intuitive impression of skimpiness may not reflect the intensive quantitative and qualitative assessment that a problem of this importance deserves. 

I have, however, just devoted five minutes of my steadily declining remaining life time to a Google Images search of "downtown trash receptacles" in hopes this will bolster my campaign for an investigative blogging award.

That search led to me a Buyer's Guide for Trash Receptacles which contains this bit of advice that Sheri Wahrgren obviously hasn't taken to heart.

Bottom line: the more trash receptacles you provide, the less trash you will encounter.

Wow. That makes so much sense. As does the following pieces of advice.

Planning trash collection might not be your favorite topic, but proper organization can make your community clean and safe, leaving a positive first impression on guests. Facilitate successful trash collection with: - Placing the right amount of commercial trash receptacles strategically - Installing eye-catching, colorful decorative trash cans that guests can easily find - Encouraging green habits with recycling receptacles that sort recyclable materials

Eye-catching. Colorful. Decorative. Three words that definitely don't describe the trash receptacles currently in downtown. But it does describe the trash receptacles in Washington D.C.'s Chinatown. 

New issue of Salem Cherry Pits takes jabs at city officials

Not surprisingly, we (well, I) here at Salem Political Snark adore snarkishness.

That's why I'm eager to share every new issue of Salem Cherry Pits when it hits my email inbox, sent to me by downtown resident and property owner Carole Smith -- the creator, publisher, and distributor of this marvelous mixture of biting satire and solid information about downtown goings-on.

Below I've shared screenshots of the first two pages of the Spring 2020 issue, which deal with a novel approach to homelessness and a heretofore unrecognized way the coronavirus can be transmitted: farts. You can read the whole issue by clicking on these PDF files.

The first is the entire issue minus the centerfold (which, sadly, isn't a provocative unclothed image of a city councilor). The second is a rotated page 4, so you don't get a crick in your neck from perusing details of where downtown urban renewal money comes from. And the third is the oversized centerfold, "Proposed 2021 Downtown Urban Renewal Budget."

Download Spring 2020 Cherry Pits Newsletter
Download Downtown Urban Renewal Money
Download Centerfold Spring Cherry Pits

City of Salem giving out parking tickets in a deserted downtown

Well, at least the City of Salem is heeding Trump's call for business as usual during the coronavirus crisis. Parking tickets are still being given out in the downtown area, even though spaces are plentiful now and visitors are few.

This evening downtown resident and property owner Carole Smith let me know about this dubious policy. Here's what Smith said, along with three photos she took today during the lunch hour, which, as she says below, usually is the busiest time for downtown.

Last week I ran into a parking services officer downtown and I asked him “You aren’t giving out parking tickets, are you?” He said “No, the city is paying us to walk around all day." 

Today a friend talked to a parking services officer and she said they WERE giving out parking tickets. What an awful city.  Parking limits are suppose to be implemented to TURN OVER PARKING SPACES. It is not supposed to be a revenue source for the city. It is ONLY about parking management, not revenue.

I was out for a walk today and took some photos of parking downtown. You can park wherever you want. There are open parking spaces everywhere. Most stores have been closed for a week or more. So why is the city issuing parking tickets? Is it just meanness?  

Bad city, bad greedy city! This is the busiest corner in downtown and NOBODY is here.  

Lullu closed two weeks ago. The barber shop closed down about a week ago. We are working with our tenants, putting them on 1/2 rent to defer rent to the future. We are ALL losing money, so why is the city still issuing tickets?

These photos were taken at 12:35 pm today, during lunch hour, normally the BUSIEST time of the day for parking downtown.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mayor Chuck Bennett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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