Salem Political Snark

Marion County out to undermine gun control and climate action

It's not easy being a conservative in a liberal area, or a liberal in a conservative area, because your elected officials tend to do things you'd rather not have done. 

Of course, a lot depends on what's meant by "area."

I'm a liberal. I live in Oregon, a blue state. So mostly I'm good with what statewide elected officials (all Democrats) do. Within Oregon, I live in Salem -- that's my address, though I'm not in the city limits -- which leans decidedly leftward. So mostly I'm good with what the Salem City Council does, as the council has a clear progressive majority.

However, when it comes to Marion County, Democrat me often is at odds with what the mostly Republican county elected officials do. (I believe Bill Burgess, the County Clerk, is the only Democrat holding a Marion County elected office.)

Two recent examples:

(1) In the November midterm election, Oregon voters approved Measure 114, which regulates the purchase of firearms. Among other things, a permit is required and ammunition magazines can't hold more than ten rounds.

Seems reasonable to me. I voted for Measure 114.

Statewide, it passed 51% to 49%. But Marion County rejected it 43% to 57%. Which helps to explain why Joe Kast, the Marion County Sheriff, has said he won't be enforcing the magazine capacity provision of Measure 114. Here's an excerpt from a letter Kast sent out.
Download FINAL_BM114_LETTER.doc2 PDF

We recognize it is likely there will be litigation regarding provisions within the measure which will not be resolved prior to the measure becoming law. To protect the interests of our law-abiding community members, we still need to be prepared to assist the residents of Marion County with a pathway to exercise their right to lawfully purchase firearms in the state of Oregon.

We anticipate significant strain on our limited staffing and resources as a result of Measure 114. Moving forward, we will prioritize our services towards the areas of greatest need to best serve the residents and visitors within Marion County, therefore will not be focusing investigations on magazine capacity issues.

Well, as an OPB story says:

Measure 114 was passed by voters, not state lawmakers in Salem. Sheriffs are not lawyers and do not interpret the constitution — that is the role of judges.

Hopefully Sheriff Kast will realize this, that he's not supposed to decide which laws are constitutional, the courts are.

(2) Even more disturbing, because Marion County stands alone among Oregon's 36 counties on this, my county has joined with thirteen Oregon cities in a lawsuit aimed at stopping Governor Brown's executive action on reducing greenhouse gas pollution in this state.

A group of thirteen Oregon cities and one county have sued Oregon's Department of Land Conservation and Development, challenging a new set of environmental regulations that the group argues would force them to change their land use rules in damaging ways and on an impractically fast timeline.

Forest Grove, Grants Pass, Happy Valley, Hillsboro, Keizer, Medford, Oregon City, Sherwood, Springfield, Troutdale, Tualatin, Wood Village, Cornelius and Marion County jointly filed the lawsuit Friday in the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The plaintiffs also filed a motion Monday asking the court to place an emergency halt on enforcement of the new regulations while the lawsuit plays out.

The lawsuit targets Oregon's "Climate-Friendly and Equitable Communities" rules, which the Land Conservation and Development Commission adopted this summer in an effort to get Oregon back on track to meet its climate goals, according to the department's website.

The rules were developed after Gov. Kate Brown issued an order in March 2020 that tightened Oregon's carbon emission goals and directed state agencies to take action to speed up the pace of emission reduction.

Well, hopefully the lawsuit won't go anywhere. But I sure wish the three conservative Republicans who make up the Marion County Board of Commissioners would go somewhere: out of elected office and back into private life. 

I can dream...

Marion County District Attorney candidates offer clear choice in City Club debate

I'm healed!

Thanks to the current Marion County District Attorney, Paige Clarkson, and her challenger in the May election, Spencer Todd, I've recovered from the (mild) trauma of watching the previous Salem City Club debate via Zoom between the candidates for Salem Mayor, Chris Hoy and Chane Griggs, where Hoy and Griggs agreed on almost everything and were kind and gentle toward each other.

Morally uplifting, perhaps, but boring. 

In contrast, Clarkson and Todd disagreed on almost everything and were pleasingly snarky toward each other. Partly that was because being attorneys, they're used to arguing with their fellow lawyers. But it also is clear that they have decidedly distinct political philosophies.

Paige Clarkson embraces the traditional conservative Law and Order/Lock Them Up model of public safety. Spencer Todd embraces a more modern progressive approach: Deal strictly with those who commit serious crimes, but look for innovative ways to improve the criminal justice system.

Top left: Hans West, City Club moderator; Top right: Paige Clarkson; Bottom: Spencer Todd

The first question asked by moderator Hans West was about Oregon's public defender crisis.

Clarkson said the right thing in noting that all parties in the criminal justice system are necessary, obviously including prosecutors and defenders. But she claimed that the public defender budget totaled more than the budget of all District Attorneys in Oregon combined, so we need to make sure that money is being spent well.

Todd, a public defender himself, countered that the public defender budget includes more line items than the District Attorney budget, so they aren't directly comparable. In fact, Oregon spends way more on prosecuting than defense. He argued that we need more defense lawyers.

In response to a question about Marion County crime rates, Todd said that violent crimes are up while property crimes are down. He observed that we've been trying the same things for 40 years, and it's time to change. 

Clarkson said that crime is worse. The reason: all branches of government have reduced tools for law enforcement, using as an example the Oregon legislature's recent restriction on police pulling someone over for a burnt out taillight or other minor equipment infraction. In a rejoinder, Todd observed that things Clarkson complained about are excuse-making, with most not even law yet.

Asked what their biggest concern is in Marion County, Clarkson said child abuse, plus an excessively vague, "Neighborhoods don't feel as safe." Todd went with recidivism, saying, rather obviously, that there's a need to identify people likely to reoffend violently. He also mentioned homelessness and, nonshockingly, a need to reform the District Attorney's office, with crimes going unprosecuted by the incumbent, who happens to be Clarkson.

Measure 110, which voters approved by a 58-42% margin in 2020, decriminalized personal non-commercial possession of street drugs like cocaine and heroin, requiring people found with such drugs to either pay a $100 fine or complete a health assessment. 

In regard to whether Measure 110 is on track, Todd said that before the measure passed, drug users could be arrested, jailed for six months, and not get any treatment. He views Measure 110 as better than before, but it isn't doing all that was planned. "I'd rather prosecute more serious crimes," he said. Clarkson said she's a vocal opponent of Measure 110, in part because few people have sought treatment rather than pay the $100 fine. It "rolled out the red carpet for drug cartels," according to Clarkson.

Both Clarkson and Todd said they favor mobile crisis response teams like Eugene's CAHOOTS program that has diverted about 17% of police calls to non-uniformed responders. Todd said that if we can't get more police, police resources should be used more efficiently, one reason he supports mobile crisis response teams.

Lastly, Todd views the death penalty as incredibly cost-ineffective given the lengthy appeals process. He said it isn't an effective deterrent and it takes away the ability of a prisoner to repent, something he sees as important. Which made me think, OK, but given how long prisoners spend on Death Row in Oregon (executions are rare), isn't there plenty of time to repent? Clarkson said that voters have approved of the death penalty, which doesn't exist in Oregon for all intents and purposes. She supports it in certain circumstances.

Mark Wigg has ideas to help the homeless

Mark Wigg is a Salem community activist who is running for the Marion County Board of Commissioners seat currently held by Colm Willis.

Mark Wigg

Since Wigg is unopposed in the Democratic primary, and Willis is unopposed in the Republican primary, they'll face off in the November 2022 general election.

I wholeheartedly support Wigg. Currently all three of the Marion County Commissioners are conservative Republicans. Wigg would bring fresh ideas and some political balance to the board.

Here's an essay Wigg sent me about the homeless crisis. He's absolutely correct that what's being tried now isn't working very well. 

From Problem to Asset

Marion County Commissioners and Salem’s Mayor are treating the homeless crisis as a problem to be addressed by pushing the homeless from camp to camp.

They think the problem is solved if these people are out of sight. They blame the homeless for their situation and want to punish them for being poor and homeless.

The commissioners and mayor then complain that businesses can’t find enough employees to stay open or expand. I’ll bet you already can see the solution to both problems. Let us hope the commissioners and mayor will see it too.

From studies and experience, I learned that about 30 percent of the homeless are too damaged physically or mentally to hold a job. The longer a person is homeless the more likely they will get to this point.

Forcing these people to live in dangerous, unsanitary camps is cruel and does nothing to reduce the problems society faces.

A friend of mine is a counselor and was working with a young person on their substance abuse problems. She would meet her client at the park near his homeless camp. After the police rousted the campers, she lost contact with her client. I would guess that her client suffered a major setback in trying to be clean and sober after that.

About 50 percent of the homeless want to work and are able to work. Many homeless people have jobs but it is a challenge to keep a job if you are homeless. For example, I went to Woodburn to find Matthew with my friend, a Private Investigator.

Matthew told her where he was camped and we found the camp, but Matthew wasn’t there. He was at work. She called and he said come the next day. When we called him the next day, he said he would not be at his camp because all his stuff was stolen while he was at work.

We don’t have the money to provide a house for every homeless person. We do have the money to provide safe, sanitary campgrounds for these people.

With 80 percent of the homeless in safe, sanitary campgrounds, the police and sheriff could focus more time on the 20 percent that currently are committing crimes. Officers have told me that 30 percent of a patrol officer’s time is spent dealing with homeless issues and most of that time is rousting campers or dealing with issues associated with unmanaged camps.

When we become the communities that help people find stable living situations so they can become employees, and when we show other communities that we care for those most in need, we become the light in these dark times, and the world needs our light.

Salem voters need to realize they're in Marion County

Aside from West Salem, which is in Polk County, everybody else who lives in Salem is in Marion County. Unfortunately, when it comes to electing the county Board of Commissioners, too many Salem voters tend to forget the reality of this map.

For a long time -- I'm not sure how many years it has been -- the three members of the Marion County Board of Commissioners have all been Republicans. 

Most recently, in November 2020 Republican Danielle Bethell handily beat Democrat Ashley Carson Cottingham 52-44.

Yet the voter registration breakdown for Marion County as of September 2020 showed an almost equal number of Republicans and Democrats.

Democrat: 63, 676
Republican: 63,365
Non-affiliated: 74,605
Other: 13,679

It's possible that the non-affiliated voters skew decidedly conservative, which would explain why Republicans keep being elected to the Board of Commissioners. 

But another possibility is that many voters in Salem, a liberal-leaning city, don't have much of an interest in Board of Commissioners races. The Bethell-Cottingham race had 10,598 undervotes by people who cast ballots in the election but didn't vote in this race.

That was 6.8% of all votes. Since the margin of victory for Bethell was 8%, if Cottingham had picked up most of the undervote, the race would have been much closer. Of course, I don't know how many of the undervotes came from Salem.

Regardless of the reason for Marion County consistently electing Republicans to the Board of Commissioners, this has real consequences for Salem.

A recent example is the Marion County board expressing no interest in giving Salem funds that came to the county for programs that have mental health workers and medics respond to some crisis calls, rather than police.

Salem City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke and other progressives on the council strongly support this sort of program, as I wrote about in "Setback for Salem mental health crisis response team." I quoted a Salem Reporter story:

The city of Salem paused its plans to start a program where mental health workers respond to some crisis calls, rather than police.

The program was intended to run through United Way of the Mid-Willamette Valley and received broad support from Salem residents who testified as the city was planning its budget for the coming year.

But city plans hinged on receiving state money that’s no longer directly available to them.

The House Behavioral Health Committee in January voted unanimously in favor of HB 2417, which would provide matching funds to cities for mobile response units through a competitive grant process.

Salem city councilor Vanessa Nordyke said a change in the bill during the legislative process required counties - no longer cities - to request a piece of the $10 million the state allocated for crisis stabilization services, and cities could in turn ask for money from their respective counties. 

“As I understand it, there is no such interest from the Marion County commissioners,” Nordyke said.