(1) Help stop the Third Bridge
Tell the Salem City Council, "We don't need no damn $800 million Third Bridge!" (just use more grammatical and less profane language -- unless you don't want to). Email the city councillors and mayor:
Give a Facebook Like to No Third Bridge. Plenty of info there about why another bridge would be a massive waste of money. Improving and earthquake-proofing the two bridges we already have would cost hugely less.
Sign the No Bridgasaurus in Salem! petition.
Testify at the June 24, 2013 City Council hearing. After this hearing the council will decide whether to move ahead with an unwanted, unneeded, and unpaid for Third Bridge.
(2) Keep downtown's Historic District visitor-friendly by banning onstreet parking meters
A citizen's group is trying to get 8,000 signatures on an initiative petition aimed at stopping the City from installing downtown parking meters. Fifty downtown businesses have offered to help gather signatures. Info on the petition can be found at Salem Cherry Pits & Petals.
Sign the petition if you're a registered voter who lives in Salem. The vitality of downtown will suffer if people are charged for onstreet parking. We need to make the Historic District more attractive to visitors, not less.
(3) Stand up for beautiful healthy downtown street trees
If the three marvelous trees that US Bank cut down on State Street with the permission of clueless City of Salem leaders could talk, their stumps would say "Why did you kill me, bro? My only crime was growing and being shadeful."
Nobody wanted these trees cut down except one entity: US Bank. Arborists, members of the public, and neighboring business owners all said prune, don't cut. The City did what a powerful special interest asked for with no good reason, plain and simple.
This can't ever happen again. Tell the US Bank regional president, Alan Allbritton, and other US Bank officials: don't remove the remaining two trees (which were saved from the first chainsawing because a concerned citizen invoked a migratory bird protection requirement).
Email those US Bank officials and Peter Fernandez, City of Salem Public Works director, who ignored the advice of his own Shade Tree Advisory Committee to save the trees... three times!
Also, the Salem City Council and Mayor. Improvements to the City's tree ordinance are being drafted. City leaders need to know that people love their downtown trees and want them protected from needless destruction.
mailto:[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
Thanks for the added info about downtown trees. Salem has received the Tree City USA Award for 37 consecutive years! (http://www.cityofsalem.net/Residents/Parks/UrbanForestry/Pages/default.aspx).
Those trees make the cityscape shady and inviting. I hope they'll grow stronger for many years to come!
Posted by: Angela | June 13, 2013 at 03:20 PM