Sad -- Salem scored some stimulus money ... not a huge pile, but a tidy sum ($1.521 million) ... for energy efficiency and conservation projects.But a good chunk of the money -- more than 15% -- is going in the wrong direction.
Only a hair under 10% is going to the most important piece of all, a revolving loan fund to help Salem residents pay for energy efficiency improvements that, long term, pay for themselves many times over.
Almost as much of the money ($137k) is going to be squandered on the solar-powered trash compactor gadgets like the one near the Court St. side of the Capitol -- in other words, badly wasted.
Just as bad, the plan is to take another $90,000 and spend it on "transportation network improvements" --- in other words, we're going to blow $90k fighting against precisely the projects that we just funded with another $100 million . . . .
Hey, there's an idea! Use some of the $100,000,000 from the transportation bond to think about transportation system improvements and put the $90,000 into the revolving loan fund -- and spend a little on a system that lets people pay for energy improvements out of the energy savings that they realize with the debt staying with the property if they move. Such a system (called "Pay As You Save" or PAYS (r) in some places) is being used with great success in Berkeley, CA, with its "FIRST" (Financing Initiative for Renewable and Solar Technology) program, where the city helps residents make the improvements and then repay the loans with the savings realized.
We could more than double the size of the revolving loan fund and help Salem residents keep more of their money here at work creating jobs in Salem if we put the $90k and the $137k into the loan fund . . . or we can buy some high-tech trash bins, even as we're laying off park workers. Dumb.
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Is it really a total waste? The transportation bit will fund bike route destination signs on Winter street and mark a step towards making Winter a bicycle boulevard.
It will also fund additional sharrows on Chemeketa and on close-in streets in West Salem around the Edgewater district.
Finally it will fund bike lockers and other bike commute facilities at the West Salem and Downtown transit centers.
While the disparity and disconnect between the $100M road expansion and a $90,000 grant is undeniable, it is hardly obvious that the $90,000 grant is a "waste."
Do you really think these things are not worth doing?
They're not worth doing with funds that reduce the amounts going to residential and commercial efficiency and conservation opportunities, particularly when we're shoveling barrels of cash at the wrong kind of transportation "improvements" -- $90k taken from wrong things and spent on the projects you list would be twice the transportation improvement.
However, I understand your point. My point is simply that most things, even the solar trash cans, are "worth doing" in the abstract if there are unlimited dollars. Alas, there are not such unlimited dollars and so we have to consider what opportunities we're giving up when we spend money on things this way.
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