Salem Political Snark

Peter Fernandez, Public Works Director, is failing to enforce Salem's tree ordinance

Just when I thought the wanton destruction of four valuable street trees by Daniel and Richard Gatti couldn't be more outrageous, it turns out I was wrong.

Because Michael Slater reported in a Salem Tree Advocates post on Facebook that the City of Salem's Public Works Director, Peter Fernandez, has admitted that he hasn't been requiring people who improperly remove street trees to pay for the full assessed value of the trees, as is required by a city ordinance, SRC 86.105(c).

l heartily agree both with Jim Scheppke's comment above, plus a post that Scheppke wrote on the Facebook page where Salem City Council goings-on are discussed.

lt sure does smack of favoritism. Richard Gatti has admitted that he knew he needed to get a permit before trimming the street trees on his property that borders Liberty and Superior streets. (See here and here.) Further, Gatti didn't use a licensed tree service, and he failed to tell the contractor how the trees should be trimmed. 

So the Gatti brothers knowingly destroyed four street trees that could have a total value of tens of thousands of dollars. Yet Peter Fernandez is OK with not complying with the city ordinance, shown below, that requires Daniel and Richard Gatti to pay the full appraised value of the trees that were damaged, in addition to a fine. (Boldface added for emphasis.)

Costs of restoration. Persons violating this chapter, or a permit issued hereunder, shall be responsible for restoring damaged areas in conformance with a plan approved by the Director that provides for repair of any environmental or property damage and restoration of the site. Costs of restoration shall be not less than those determined equal to the monetary value of the regulated trees removed in violation of this chapter, or permit issued hereunder, as set forth in an appraisal acceptable to the Director and based upon applicable administrative rules. Each removal of a regulated tree in violation of this chapter shall result in a separate civil fine in addition to costs of restoration.

Sure, the City Council can indeed look into modifying this portion of the tree ordinance. But it can't roll back the clock and pretend that the ordinance didn't exist when the Gatti brothers decided to ignore it and top the four trees, which is one of the worst things that can be done to a tree.

Mangled Gatti tree on Liberty Street

City Manager Steve Powers needs to overrule Peter Fernandez' outrageous decision to not enforce the city's tree ordinance and let the Gatti brothers off the hook for their willful destruction of four valuable street trees.

This, of course, is the same Peter Fernandez who made a backroom deal with Ryan Allbritton, the U.S. Bank president, to destroy five large, beautiful, healthy trees on downtown's State Street for no good reason. I was so disturbed by that travesty, I wrote a report about it, "Outrage: the true story of Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings."

To my knowledge, Fernandez never was disciplined for the shoddy way he acted back in 2013. And here he is again, looking the other way while other well-known "pillars of the community" knowingly destroy street trees. Why Fernandez still has his position is beyond me, because he sure is doing a crappy job at it.

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

It's an open secret to those of us who live here that the City of Salem doesn't treat our town's trees well, to put it mildly.

But I was pleasantly surprised that a highly qualified person who applied for the City's Urban Forester position saw through the bullshit of City officials during a three-day job application visit and came to the same conclusion.

You can read that person's critique below. It's devastating.

Hopefully it will wake up the City Manager (Steve Powers), the Mayor (Chuck Bennett), and city councilors to the fact that Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, has been doing a lousy, unethical, sleazy job and should be fired.

Yeah, I'm biased.

I wrote a tell-out report about how Fernandez engaged in a back-room deal with the bank president to have the five beautiful, healthy, large U.S. Bank trees cut down for no good reason in 2013. The photo above shows how two of the trees looked before Fernandez and Ryan Allbritton colluded on the trees' needless destruction. 

And here's what Fernandez and Allbritton did to them in an outrageous display of screw you to the citizens of Salem and tree lovers everywhere.

Yet as you'll read below, Peter Fernandez and his hand-picked lackies are still running Salem's urban forestry program in a self-serving fashion that leaves Salem's trees unprotected by competence and caring.

Recently the City of Salem re-opened applications for the Urban Forester position this person applied for, apparently because they couldn't find a yes-man or yes-woman willing to look the other way while City officials trash our trees.

I learned about this from a post on the Salem Tree Advocates Facebook page, which got a number of comments, two of which (one from me) are shown in the screenshot below.

With that background, here's the impressions of a certified arborist who emailed me two days ago with the provocative message subject line, "Rotten in Denmark," and this offer -- which I unhesitatingly took him up on.

Hey Brian, I'm an arborist who spent three days in Salem (love your town, btw) to interview for the city arborist position... not at all what the brochure promised. I'd be happy to share my observations, especially how they relate to the Salem forestry dept, Peter Fernandez and Jennifer Keller and your urban canopy. Salem is in trouble. 

*********************

MESSAGE FROM AN APPLICANT TO BE SALEM'S URBAN FORESTER:

The purpose of my contact is to shed light on a potential problem. My personal opinion regarding the Forestry Dept at Salem Parks & Rec/Public Works is that it doesn't exist.

THERE IS ZERO TRANSPARENCY AND EVEN LESS ACCOUNTABILITY!

The department has been hollowed out and staffed with unqualified, lazy, jaded people trying to live on the dole of municipal employment. I'm merely presenting my observations and experiences of fact.

The Manager of Parks & Rec, Jennifer Kellar, was appointed by Peter Fernandez. She has no degree in horticulture, forestry, urban forestry or parks management. She was in accounting or something like that before being drafted into service by Fernandez. Apparently no attempt was made to fill the vacancy in a competitive manner.

The Acting Urban Forester is the only forestry inspector for the department. Let's pretend Jan Staszewski were still around, that would be two inspectors.

When I worked in Brooklyn, just a little bigger than Salem with much less arable land, we had about fifteen inspectors in the field at any given time performing the normal tasks... hazardous tree inspections, responding to tree related emergencies, contractor inspection (pruning, removal, stump cutting, planting, sidewalks, various inventories, construction site monitoring, pre-construction plan review, vandalism investigation, expert testimony -- all of which I've done, incidentally).

I'm not even counting the thirty-six climbers which constitute six crews on the production side of the wall (Game of Thrones metaphor). Salem has only four, not four crews... four crew personnel. That's not even one full crew.

Before I arrived I had no trouble finding Tom Bradley, the only inspector and acting Urban Forester, in the office, apparently where he spends the bulk of his time. As I drove down from Portland the day I arrived for my day of interviews, I phoned Kellar to give her a progress report, etc.

Mr. Bradley was still in his office. I know this because Kellar got up during our conversation to close the door so she could totally trash Bradley to the prospective new department head while he was just in the next office.... classy.

Still, (1) why is this guy in the office with soooo much to be done? (2) Why is the Department Director/Manager throwing her key people under the bus? (3) How does such a blatantly unqualified person such as Kellar get such a critical position? (4) Why was her position never put out for announcement whether open/competitive or at least internal announcement (could Peter Fernandez be building a cult of personality)?

Incidentally, the next day as part of my interview-audition itinerary, I spent time first with Mr. Bradley and then stepped in to say thanks/etc. at the end of this day. He was STILL in his office doing the same thing as earlier.... performing service request inspections via Google Street View. (In fairness, it's a valid ancillary tool, but really??? see the second line of this paragraph.)

During my drive-around tour of a couple parks, I apparently offended Bradley and a horticultural supervisor. They were expertly describing the importance of the local white oaks and hypersensitive political climate that surrounded their preservation.

This is nothing new to me and seemed like a good conversation as I have a little experience in parks with high patronage and high arboricultural maintenance priorities. So I asked what were the greatest threats they faced to preserve and care for these trees. Were they biotic or abiotic???

The hort guy said that Armillaria was the primary cause of the root rot that plagued the white oaks. He mentioned injections was the only treatment. (Actually there is no way to "cure" Armillaria. It can only be managed. These include quarantine, root collar and aeration/airspading, properly sanitizing tools, injection and ultimately removal of the infected tree).

I asked if the forestry/hort departments used any non-invasive diagnostic tests to examine high priority trees such as heritage trees or trees in high target settings for the existence of the offending fungus and if the department owned any of these diagnostic tools. I specifically asked about the use of acoustic tomagraphy or even the common resistograph because of their proven efficacy.

The hort guy and Bradley bristled with thinly veiled anger when they responded defensively. No was the answer (for perspective, an analog resistograph costs a little over $2k yet the department spent almost $2k to bring me to Salem for the interview, hmmmm.....)

OK.... I tried to change the subject away from the biotic threat to the abiotic cause of white oak decline in Salem, which I knew would most likely be soil compaction and high moisture. I was correct.

Kellar, Bradley and the hort supervisor told me that the second greatest threat to these treasures were Armillaria root rot and soil compaction...... they literally said this as they turned the tour van around driving on the root plates in a stand of large white oaks in the lawn beside a path. Yeah, you heard me.

My next stop was a meet and greet luncheon with Tom Bradley, Jake Snell, Noe Marquez, Tibby Larson, Jennifer Kellar, Patricia Farrell, Peter Fernandez and Robert Chandler....

Something was off from the first contact after my initial Skype interview where they offered (without my prompting) to pay my way out and back to interview/audition.... hotel, car and flight from NYC to PDX. This is unheard of... I've had to decline second interviews in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle (yes, love the PNW) for logistical challenge reasons.

So yeah, I could see it if my last name was Shigo or even Bunyan. But this was such a flag on the play. Online resources I found were news videos of emergency trees down with the last City Forester (JS) caught on camera speaking to another city forestry employee remarking about "I reckon we're gonna be liable for this..." Really, bad form!

Then there was the white oak on the house whose root plate was cut in half because the road was built literally right up to the root flare of the tree and the cause of the failure was a mystery.... Reference back to "normal tasks" in line two of paragraph three.... or the two 100 year old sequoias removed without permit, (see "tasks"), but then there are the five US Bank removals.....

I'm an experienced professional with a couple of decades in arboriculture in both the private sector and NPO/Municipal/Urban Forestry experience to my credit.

As soon as I read the article I knew the truth behind the story. The bank manager wanted a "vista prune" down to grade, so he called Peter Fernandez. What did people think was going to happen if tree pits are installed in the sidewalk at construction (see "tasks") and those big green things are stuck where they're designed to be???

From the photos, I couldn't see any sort of defect and Google Streets showed these trees needed nothing more than pruning (see, time and place for all tools!).  But then they send out a pack of slack-jawed mouth-breathing hacks to do the removals in a JLG/cherry picker??? The only thing missing were red ball caps! This offended me on many levels. So yes, I had Pete's number before I packed a bag.

I'm going to stop there... I love the PNW and would give an organ to live and work there. Salem is outstanding and worth fighting for. I live in New York. I know corruption, I see it every day. Salem still has a chance to fix its issues. I give you this information for you to use or not use.

Peter Fernandez says that there is no way to cause the roughly eight different neighborhood groups to cooperate with city codes regarding trees, but rather he could only encourage neighborhood cooperation by "pandering". I took this to mean that he wanted cart blanche to exploit the urban forestry program without consequence for his own agenda.

That's why, under the highly experienced and professional leadership of Jennifer Kellar, you have no department at all. There is no tree ordinance, just some rules in the city codes...this isn't a tree ordinance. No inspections seem to be getting done because un-permited removals, etc happen regularly.

There seems to be no foresight or planning because most of the street trees are red maples. What if Salem experiences a host specific event like the asian long horned beetle infestation or dutch elm disease??? I've been an inspector on the ALB quarantine in Ohio and seen full host species removal. Everybody loses!

A large portion of the city doesn't have even 20% canopy cover, WTF??? There is no street tree inventory.... The tree census is literally an "educated guess".... There's only a partial crew, one lame, lazy inspector, no urban forester, apparently absent when he was there, and a nervous, untrained, inexperienced and unqualified leader who was gifted the job, fulfilling no qualification other than doing whatever she was told by her boss.

I don't know it for a fact that Tom Bradley is a lazy agoraphobic arborist, I just know it's true.

I don't know it for a fact that Jennifer Kellar acquired and keeps her position by assuming any position, I just know it's true.

I don't know it for a fact that Peter Fernandez is an unaccountable manipulative micro-managing weasel using the good will of the citizens of Salem for his own personal gain, I just know it's true.

Bottom line, This guy came from Miami, saw Salem as something fuckable and has been fucking it ever since. Bon chance Salem...

***************************

[Note: like me, the arborist who wrote this message is a fan of Bill Maher, who has a recurring comedic bit on his HBO Real Time show with the theme of "I don't know it for a fact, I just know it's true."]

Three facts about the controversy over Salem library moving to church property

We love facts here at the Salem Political Snark blog. We also adore opinions, which should be based on facts as much as possible.

So here's some facts about the controversial proposal of City officials to temporarily house the public library in a building owned by the Salem Alliance Church, along with my opinions about those facts. Note: I'm going to send this blog post to officials at the City of Salem so they can check my facts.

First, though, I invite you to sign a petition I started last Friday in support of the Salem Human Rights Commission, which opposes the library using the church-owned building while renovations are occurring, given the church's opposition to same-sex marriage and its view that same-sex sex is a sin.

Click here to view my "Stand up for LGBTQ rights in Salem!" petition. 

The following facts are based on the most recent meeting of the Library Renovation Council Subcommittee. I listened to the portion of the audio file of the June 18, 2019 meeting dealing with the relocation of the library, since apparently there are no written minutes of the meeting. (The Meeting Notes just consisted of the audio file.)

I jotted down quotes as I listened. The quotes from meeting participants (see above) shared in this post shouldn't be taken as a perfect transcript of what they said, but are accurate enough for blog post purposes. The discussion of finding a site to temporarily house the library was lengthy.

It often was difficult to know who was speaking. So if I'm confident about who said something, I'll identify them in a quote. Otherwise, I'll leave the quote unidentified. Here's the three facts that stood out for me.

(1) Seemingly there are alternatives to the building owned by the Salem Alliance Church. At the subcommittee's April meeting, three locations were mentioned as leading candidates to temporarily house the library: the church-owned Capital Press building, Liberty Plaza, and the Vick Building. 

Some Googling shows that large spaces in Liberty Plaza no longer are available. But plenty of space in the Vick Building is still shown as available to be leased, 24,000 square feet on the first and second floors. I believe the library is only looking for around 15,000 square feet. The Capital Press building is 16,000 square feet.

And there was talk at the June meeting about a location that I believe was termed "Pringle Warehouse." It could be this listing, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I didn't hear anyone say the Capital Press building was the only option for the library. It just was viewed by City staff as the best option.

Library staff and others toured the Vick Building, but felt the Capital Press building was preferable. One reason is cost, since it was said repeatedly that if the lease (likely 18 months) cost less than was budgeted, the savings could be used for other library needs. This tells me that the City of Salem probably could afford to lease a different building, if this was necessary.

UPDATE: Today, July 17, I called the company that had the Vick Building up for sale or lease. I was told that a contract on the Vick Building has been signed, and it will be purchased within the next few months. So that option is gone for a temporary library.

(2) The Library Renovation Subcommittee was divided on the Capital Press building. Much of the discussion at the meeting centered around pushback from the community if the City of Salem leased space for the library from a church that is viewed as anti-LGBTQ rights, given its stance on same-sex marriage and same-sex sex. Here's some quotes:

"I think we're going to be dinged for it [using the church building], and I don't like it. I don't like giving money to a church that is discriminatory, and doesn't follow the law."

"My concern is that there are community groups that will not meet at that space [Broadway Commons, also owned by the church]. And if I can extrapolate, they would not meet at the library, if we were to be there [Capital Press building]. So that's a concern for me, and I'm just concerned we're going to limit the people who are going to come to the library for the next two years."

Now, my impression is that when the person quoted above said the church doesn't follow the law, this referred to the fact that same-sex marriage is legal everywhere in the United States. However, the Salem Alliance Church doesn't believe in same-sex marriage.

Others at the meeting argued that it is legal for a church to deny its members the right to be married by the church, which is correct. However, this didn't sway those who felt that the City of Salem shouldn't house the public library in a building owned by a group opposed to LGBTQ rights.

Near the end of the meeting, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez (whose voice I recognized) said in regard to leasing the church-owned building, "We're just going to have to hold our nose." Meaning, ignore something unpleasant. And in regard to going to the Human Rights Commission, Fernandez said, "We're just looking for some discussion and ultimately some cover."

Turns out, not only did the Human Rights Commission not give City officials any cover when it comes to leasing the Capital Press building, it actively opposed doing this.

(3) Most agreed that the Human Rights Commission should weigh-in on the LGBTQ rights issue. Given the back and forth between the Library Renovation Subcommittee members regarding the appropriateness of temporarily housing the library in a building owned by the Salem Alliance Church, there was general agreement that the Human Rights Commission should be asked how it feels about this.

What I found interesting is how optimistic most of the committee members were about getting the Human Rights Commission stamp of approval to lease the Capital Press building from the church. The plan was for several City of Salem staff members to first meet with the Commission's LGBTQ Rights Task Force, then with the Human Rights Commission itself.

The idea was to stress how welcoming and inclusive the temporary library would be to the LGBTQ community, even though the Salem Alliance Church was opposed to the fundamental rights of same-sex marriage and the ability to engage in same-sex sex without being termed a "sinner."

Of course, that idea came to a screeching halt when the Human Rights Commission ended up voting unanimously to oppose using the church-owned property as a temporary library. 

Listening to the audio recording of the meeting, it seems to me that the subcommittee didn't understand that just because a church has the legal right to discriminate against LGBTQ people, this doesn't mean that the City of Salem should funnel public funds into the Salem Alliance Church bank account, and force citizens who care about LGBTQ rights and also want to use the library to make a tough ethical decision during the renovation period.

I was able to make out the distinctive voice of Councilor Jim Lewis. Here's part of what he had to say:

"This is a business transaction. The church has a right to work within its rules. Our job here is to find the best facility for the library. And if that means someone won't go to it, so be it."

That led another committee member to say:

"I disagree. We have an obligation to make sure we have a space that is open and welcoming to the community. I'm not saying that we shouldn't go there [to the church-owned building]. I'm just saying we have a [Human Rights] Commission. We have a process. If there are things we can do to help mitigate those concerns, I think we should do them."

Well, the Human Rights Commission statement on this issue ended up saying this:

The Commission respectfully requests that the City review the available properties for other potential options, and select another location, even if that location is not as ideal in cost or operations.

So given that the Library Renovation Subcommittee of the City Council decided to ask the Human Rights Commission how it felt about use of the church-owned building for a temporary library, and the Commission basically said find another place, even if it costs more and is less efficient, the burden now is on City officials to prove that no other building in Salem is available.

Given that City staff clearly want to use the Capital Press building, I'm worried that the staff report going to the City Council won't honestly and accurately present the other options for housing the library. This needs to happen so the Council can assess the pros and cons of leasing space from a church that is anti-LGBTQ rights.

It seems to me that the wisest course of action would be to pick a different location for a temporary library. Indications are that this issue will be discussed, and possibly voted on, at the Monday, June 22 meeting of the Salem City Council.

I'll end by observing that our one and only daily print newspaper, the Statesman Journal, so far has failed to run a story about the Human Rights Commission opposing use of the church-owned building for a temporary library. I emailed two reporters at the Statesman Journal who cover city government, suggesting a story, but never got a reply.

Pleasingly, the online-only Salem Reporter did run a story, "Plan to move Salem library to church-owned property stirs discrimination concerns."

Salem Public Works Director doubts science of climate change

A few days ago our local chapter of 350.org, 350 Salem OR, called out Peter Fernandez, the Public Works director of the City of Salem, for appearing to doubt the reality of human-caused climate change that is causing our one and only Earth to warm dramatically and dangerously.

When 350 Salem OR said it is "very troubling" that Peter Fernandez is unwilling to embrace the clear scientific consensus that climate change is happening, we humans are causing it, and reducing carbon emissions is a necessity, that's an understatement.

Fernandez oversees Public Works, which probably is the largest department in the City of Salem. Among other things, he's responsible for Salem's transportation network, which a recent Greenhouse Gas Inventory showed is the biggest contributor of carbon pollution in our city.

It's a big freaking deal that Fernandez either may be clueless about such an important scientific and public policy fact, or, worse, is a global warming denier who could be working to undermine Salem's efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

So I emailed Fernandez three days ago, last Monday, May 20.

Peter, here’s a screenshot of a recent Facebook post by the Salem branch of 350.org. I’m planning to write about this and wanted to give you a chance to comment on their assertion that you’re unwilling to say climate change is occurring. 

Do you consider that the Earth is warming because of human-caused climate change and that our city, nation, and the world need to act to deal with this? As Public Works Director, obviously climate change is central to your work.  So do you accept the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change?

        — Brian

The response from Public Works Director Fernandez was... nothing. No reply. Maybe Fernandez is taking some vacation time so he can attend a Global Warming Denier's Club get-together.

More likely, I guess, is that Peter Fernandez doesn't want to admit that he is an anti-science global warming skeptic, since a majority of the City Council wants Salem to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and institute a Climate Action Plan with measurable goals to do just that.

I say this in part because I've previously asked Fernandez if he accepts the science of global warming. Back in April 2016 I asked 30 Salem-area civic leaders three questions about climate change, as described in "How Salem's candidates and other local leaders look upon climate change." 

Fernandez was a no-response then, as now. Maybe Fernandez just doesn't like to hear from me. Hard to believe, since I'm such a likable guy.

Of course, I did write a scathing tell-all report in 2014 after Fernandez engaged in sleazy back-room deal-making with the U.S. Bank president that resulted in the removal of five beautiful, healthy, large trees on downtown's State Street for no good reason.

(Read all about it, if you haven't already, in "Outrage: the true story of Salem's U.S. Bank tree killings.")

So if you want to ask Fernandez whether he accepts the science of human-caused climate change, have at it: [email protected]

Let me know if you get a response from him. That will tell me two things: how Fernandez looks upon global warming, and whether he likes you more than me.  (I'm much more concerned about the first thing, of course.)

City of Salem favors rich developers over ordinary people

Here's a 3 1/2 minute excerpt from a half-hour interview Greg Fabos and I did with Ken Adams on his Salem CCTV show, "The Valley View." After some remarks by me, Greg speaks about how he's seen Salem change for the worse over the years when it comes to rich developers being able to trample on the rights of ordinary people.

He says:

There's a real negative feeling about what's happening in Salem, and I've been here a long time. It used to be a nice well-run city with, I felt, good concern for its citizens. Right now, it's at loose ends. No one is stepping up to the plate to represent concerned citizens. And it's flipped over to the advantage or benefit of the developer.

Greg is one of the homeowners in south Salem's Cinnamon Hill neighborhood who are getting screwed over by the Sabre Ridge Estates development. I wrote about this travesty in "Salem subdivision gone wrong: City staff ignore horrendous screw-ups."

This is a disturbing tale of how City of Salem officials have allowed a subdivision developer to trample the rights of neighbors, while ignoring two women's requests to explain how repeated screw-ups keep happening. 

The subdivision is Sabre Ridge Estates, off of Sunnyside Road in south Salem. The women are Lisa Basalto and her mother, Lynn. Lisa wrote to me several weeks ago, looking for someone to help with her extremely frustrating situation.

...Something sure seems to be amiss at City Hall -- especially, the Public Works Department headed up by Peter Fernandez.

I readily admit that I'm not a Fernandez fan (to put it mildly), having documented the favoritism and backroom dealmaking he engaged in with U.S. Bank President Ryan Allbritton during the 2013 State Street tree removal debacle. Since, I've heard credible reports that Fernandez meets regularly with Salem's largest developers to discuss how the City can help them achieve their money-making plans as smoothly as possible.

So when I heard about what the Basaltos has gone through, I thought "Sad, but not surprising; ordinary citizens regularly get screwed-over by City of Salem officials who care a lot more about pleasing the Powers That Be in this town than complying with governmental regulations and ethical norms."

Mayor Anna Peterson, Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett, City Manager Steve Powers, and Salem's eight city councilors need to start kicking some butt at City Hall, stopping the outrageous way Lisa has been treated by City officials, which I'm confident happens to many other ordinary citizens who don't get the white glove treatment extended to developers with lots of money and power.

Steve Powers became the Salem City Manager well over a year ago.

So even though the favoritism given to developers over ordinary citizens preceded his arrival, it sure seems like Powers now bears a lot of responsibility for how people are being mistreated by City staff when they ask perfectly reasonable questions about blatantly unreasonable goings-on involving large-scale developments in Salem.

There needs to be some housecleaning at City Hall.

My view is that so long as Peter Fernandez is Public Works Director, this shows that the Mayor, City Manager, and City Council aren't really concerned about putting average citizens on an equal playing field with Salem's Rich and Powerful. 

At the very least, there should be a public, open, and extensive review of how Fernandez has been managing (and mismanaging) Public Works. Citizens familiar with the litany of screw-ups in this department should be able to have their say before a review board charged with deciding whether Fernandez should remain in his job.

The full CCTV interview can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZClDijPgvpE&feature=youtu.be

 

Salem subdivision gone wrong: City staff ignore horrendous screw-ups

This is a disturbing tale of how City of Salem officials have allowed a subdivision developer to trample the rights of neighbors, while ignoring two women's requests to explain how repeated screw-ups keep happening. 

The subdivision is Sabre Ridge Estates, off of Sunnyside Road in south Salem. The women are Lisa Basalto and her mother, Lynn. Lisa wrote to me several weeks ago, looking for someone to help with her extremely frustrating situation. Below I've shared her story, along with some related photos and videos. 

Last Thursday I went to the Basalto home. I've shared some of the photos I took during my visit at appropriate places in her email message, along with two videos the Basaltos made of the flooding caused by poor construction practices and erosion control measures.

What Lisa and her family have gone through is infuriating. But what makes her experience even more disturbing is how it is echoed in a story in the current issue of Salem Weekly, "Repeated favoritism claimed for local developer." Here's an excerpt:

For more than a year, Easterly says, he has attempted to learn from the City of Salem the reasons behind the exceptions given Fry [developer of a subdivision in West Salem]. He describes meeting with frustration from officials who will neither concede nor explain the favoritism he had documented. “Efforts were made to answer my questions,” he says, “until such time that staff sensed my questions were challenging their ‘official’ view.

He says he’s felt ‘heard’ – “as well as avoided.”

“I’m an i-dotter and a t-crosser,” he told Salem Weekly. “I don’t mind if you want to change the rules. But if you don’t change the rules – you should play by them.”

Something sure seems to be amiss at City Hall -- especially, the Public Works Department headed up by Peter Fernandez.

I readily admit that I'm not a Fernandez fan (to put it mildly), having documented the favoritism and backroom dealmaking he engaged in with U.S. Bank President Ryan Allbritton during the 2013 State Street tree removal debacle. Since, I've heard credible reports that Fernandez meets regularly with Salem's largest developers to discuss how the City can help them achieve their money-making plans as smoothly as possible.

So when I heard about what the Basaltos has gone through, I thought "Sad, but not surprising; ordinary citizens regularly get screwed-over by City of Salem officials who care a lot more about pleasing the Powers That Be in this town than complying with governmental regulations and ethical norms."

Mayor Anna Peterson, Mayor-elect Chuck Bennett, City Manager Steve Powers, and Salem's eight city councilors need to start kicking some butt at City Hall, stopping the outrageous way Lisa has been treated by City officials, which I'm confident happens to many other ordinary citizens who don't get the white glove treatment extended to developers with lots of money and power.

Here's what Lisa told me in her first message. Hopefully her horrible experience won't go in vain. I've boldfaced passages that struck me as meriting special attention.

Hi Brian, I hope you don't mind me reaching out to you like this. I have enjoyed reading your blog, particularly about the issues of corruption in Salem's City Hall and Planning Commission, because it feels like one of the only places on the internet where my own frustrations are being reflected.

I moved to Salem about three years ago with my family. We live in a roughly 30-year-old home on Cinnamon Hill Drive in Southeast Salem, which backs up to a property on Sunnyside Road that is now being developed. At the time we bought the house, we were unaware that this property was going to be developed. Directly behind us was a large house on acreage, and adjacent to that property was a Christmas tree farm.

Alongside our property line was a private road/driveway which serviced both the house directly behind us and an older house, built in the 1920s, that has a working farm attached to it. Lining the driveway are 100-year-old white oak trees, zig-zagging our property with some trees inside our property line and some just outside it; and there used to be some beautiful fir and wild cherry trees as well (the “used-to-be” should give you an indication about how “fun” this story is going to be).

When we moved in, we didn't realize that, apparently, the owner of the house behind us and of the Christmas tree farm was planning on turning his property into a housing development, and had been entangled in a dispute with all our neighbors for years because of it. Since around 2007, our neighbors and the owners of the 1920s house had been fighting to try to save the oak trees and a number of other magnificent trees on the property. Though they managed to save some, hundreds of trees have been cut down.

Work on the development started in April of last year and it has been an uphill battle with the city and the developers (Mountain West, Multi Tech Engineering and Wind River Homes) to get any kind of information what is happening. The only plans that are on file with the city are out-of-date and are not being adhered to, but when we contact the city, they shrug and re-refer us to those same plans.

Over Labor Day weekend, a tree service came out and cut down a number of trees that had been marked for conservation according to a letter we received from the city in October 2015. Additionally, they cut major limbs off every white oak tree (all of which were marked for conservation), potentially endangering the lives of the trees. I went out with the letter from the city to try to stop them before they cut down a massive, several-hundred-year-old fir tree, but they shrugged and said even though the letter from the city did seem to indicate that tree should be saved, they couldn’t go against their orders.

Since it was Labor Day weekend, I’m sure you can imagine how much luck we had getting anyone from the city involved. By the time we got contact with anyone, the trees were long gone – and the city planner didn’t even care, anyway.

Losing so many trees was absolutely devastating... But compared to the bizarre reshaping of the land they are up to now, it almost feels inconsequential. A few days after the tree-cutting fiasco, they tore down the house on acreage directly behind our property (which was indicated on the original plans approved by the city, the ones the city planner continually refers us to, as remaining and becoming part of the new neighborhood) with no permit on file.

Lisa showing me the giant artificial hill

They then graded down the hill that the house was built on and used the loose red dirt to grade up an artificial hill directly behind our house. There is now a 20-foot artificial hill on the south side of the private road. Nothing was done to mitigate water run-off – previously there had been a drainage ditch and a culvert as this was a flood-prone area, but they filled in that ditch and did not create a drain or any other means to divert water.

We contacted the city to express our concerns about this about a month ago. We got a hand-wave.

Video of the artificial hill collapsing

Over this last weekend, when the torrential rain hit, a large section of the artificial hill collapsed. Four feet of mud slid down and caked both the driveway and our next-door-neighbor’s backyard. Our neighbors who live in the 1920s house were trapped in their house during a massive storm. When they tried to leave the next day, their car got stuck and it took almost three hours for Triple-A to get them out.

Video of the subdivision-caused flooding of Lisa's house

Additionally, our backyard and the lower part of our house were flooded. A two-foot-deep river of water and mud rushed through our backyard like white-water rapids. The crawl space under our house is full of water damage now.

We called Salem Public Works and an Environmental Compliance Officer came out and said this was one of the most egregious cases of lack of erosion control he had ever seen. He said the city is notoriously flippant about addressing erosion and more concerned about rubber-stamping every proposed development.

Gravel/rock has been put on the eroded artificial hill

The excavation company that did the grading finally came out to check on the landslide yesterday. Their solution was to throw gravel at everything – even though there was still standing water on the driveway, they did nothing to drain it. It was at least a foot deep yesterday afternoon.

The only thing keeping it from running into our yard and our next-door neighbors’ was a patch of gravel holding their erosion tarp in place. Our neighbors in the 1920s house are, I can only assume, trapped again, because the water looks much too deep to safely drive through. And, of course, the next time a big storm blows in, since they only reinforced the part of the hill that broke, the rest of the hill is prime to give out.

When we contacted the city planner we’d been in touch with about this latest fiasco this morning, he told us to stop contacting him. So that’s it. Our house is now in a major flood and landslide zone, one artificially created that did not exist as a threat before this summer, and the city is not interested in doing anything about it.

Giant artificial hill may be extended over the access road

That’s why I’m reaching out to you. Our neighbors in the 1920s house have been told that the developer is planning on expanding the artificial hill and taking away their driveway, giving them an alley through the development instead. If the hill is built closer to our properties, the landslide risk becomes even greater as it takes away the small buffer the road provided.

The white oak trees, already injured by the massive limb removal, will be in even more danger. If houses are built on the artificial hill, they will likely collapse in addition to the mud. And there is nothing in the plans for water management, so the water has nowhere to go except our yard, which is now the lowest point.

Our trees, our property and possibly our lives are in danger if they truly are planning on following through with this plan – and since the city has abandoned us and refuses to give us any information, we have no way of knowing if or when this will happen. Since you have dealt with this sort of thing before, if you have any advice or at least are willing to raise awareness about it, I would very greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much!

After I asked Lisa some questions about the tree removals she mentions, I got a reply that said, in part:

As you can see, much of our information in this entire affair has been word of mouth, which is leaving us in a he-said, she-said situation. This is part of the reason we are so frustrated and why I reached out to you to begin with.

If the city and the developer would be forthcoming with information and willing to answer our questions, we would be more inclined to let things go. But there is nothing on the public record except the exceptionally out-of-date plans from 2013 that we can see with our own eyes are not being followed.
Download SUB13-02 & UGA06-18A Decision 

The plans that the city and developers continually refer us to (when they respond at all) have no information about the fake hill behind our house, nothing about a retention pond or settling pond, nothing about demolishing the house that was supposed to be on Lot 137. They show houses behind us on natural ground level, not perched 25 feet over our heads on a poorly graded hill made of loose red dirt.

These changes are matters of great concern to us, but when we ask directly we are evaded or ignored. If they would answer our questions, we would let things go. But when they give us the runaround, we have no way of planning or anticipating or preparing ourselves. This is why we are angry.

Me too, Lisa. 

If you are also, let the Mayor, City Manager, city councilors, and other City of Salem officials know how you feel: email them at [email protected]

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.