Help Flush White Cloud! Urgent meeting today, 5/27, 4:00 p.m.

Update: SJ story on hearing. Still time to get your opposition into the record.

And the universe, never one to miss a chance at delicious irony, provides this: after Salem spends another long night debating the terrors of letting residents keep a few hens, this morning's mail provides this warning about a proposed gravel quarry, the "White Cloud Quarry," that will wreak havoc in South Salem.

I am writing to you from Friends of Marion County.

If you are so inclined, you might want to come down to see what's going on at the hearing tonight to fight a huge aggregate operation which could have very negative impacts on Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge. See this link:

[We] have spent the last 5 days helping them after they called us for assistance. We (Friends of Marion County) have been working with the neighbors, Salem Audubon, and US Fish and Wildlife. . . . . This has been in the SJ and on KATU.

If you do attend, you might want to bring a sign saying something like "No Gravel Pit."

Thanks.

Note that the website organized by the neighbors whose lives will be devastated by this monstrosity warns that you need to be at the meeting by 4:00 p.m. to sign in to speak.

Also note that the "Senator Hearing Room" is not in the Marion County Courthouse but in the building called "Courthouse Square," across Court St. from the Courthouse (the one where Cherriots transit mall is).

City Council can barely decide to consider whether to decide upon a recommendation to be decided later

The public hearing on the proposed changes to permit up to three hens as a permitted land use in residential-single (RS) zoned areas of Salem nearly foundered tonight. A bare 5-vote majority of the Council was determined to have some kind of hen-allowing result, but the only thing that could get five votes was to kick the can over to the Planning Commission so that they can ponder the imponderables awhile and then report something back to the City Council (after a mandatory public hearing and at least a 45-day process), when the process will begin again, exactly where it left off.

In other words, it was a grim night at City Hall, till nearly 11 p.m. We almost lost it entirely, although the Mayor's throwing her support to allowing hens in some form saved the day and was very welcome indeed.

The bottom line is that there are a number of councilors who need to ask themselves some fundamental questions about why they serve on city council and how they have come to see their role as conflict-avoidance cops who have a very low opinion of Salem residents.

These councilors all make what Ward 1's Chuck Bennett called "obsequious" bows to the Chickens in the Yard advocates, hmmming and hawwing about how all the CITY folks would, of course, be "impeccable" at keeping hens without causing problems ("Compliance" boss Brady Rogers' term). But, after acknowledging that anyone who is motivated can care for hens properly, these councilors turned right around and voted to say, in effect, that it doesn't matter.

Instead of seeing local government as the agent for building community, they see government's job as anticipating the worst conduct from people and preparing accordingly. In other words, your reward for being a solid citizen is to be ignored in favor of governmental policies that are built on the low opinion of that the councilors have of most of us.

Of course, the miscreants that these councilors fear --- and thus, the ones they actually pay attention to when considering policies -- don't care what the council does or doesn't do. The irresponsible will keep chickens (including roosters) if they want, just like they keep pit bulls, play loud music at all hours, and other anti-social things. And they will play games with any enforcement scheme. The net result of the government as cop mindset that these councilors have is the conflict-avoidance of the no-man's-land: avoiding conflict by privileging objections over actions, giving anyone with a fear a trump card.

The anti-chicken councilors call ignoring the wishes of the responsible citizenry because of fears about irresponsible ones "avoiding conflict" but it actually just decides the conflict in favor of intrusive government that thinks badly of most of its citizens.

As the Mayor said, we've got lots of real issues in Salem that could benefit from this intense level of scrutiny from Council: graffiti, often gang-inspired if not directly gang-related, abandoned cars, homelessness, hunger, high rates of teen pregnancy and dropping out of school. In the face of all these difficult problems, the Salem City Council is apparently not yet ready to let its residents keep a few hens.

Weird juxtaposition: Another presentation, donation, and plaudits for the work of the Marion-Polk Food Share at the start of the meeting tonight. Followed by a couple of hours of hemming and hawing about whether home henkeeping is really saving money or would help with food security or not. Bizarre.

And as much as one might try to respect the opponents, most of them embarass themselves. One in particular tried to tie meth labs to chickens (some meth addicts have tried making meth in chicken coops before! -- but of course that applies to bathtubs too, so . . . ) and then ordered all pro-chicken types to move to the country. Another argued that we shouldn't have urban hens for eggs because it would cut the income of local farmers out in the counties. I guess we shouldn't be allowed to grow vegetables for the same reason.

Excellent! Support local farmers right here in Salem

Nice! For about $3 a week, the "Travel Salem" office on High St. is offering to serve as a drop-off point for the "Community Supported Agriculture" (CSA) shares from French Prairie Farm in St. Paul -- so you can have fresh, local produce delivered for you to downtown Salem and ride your bike over and pick it up (or pick it up on your way home from work. You'll save more than the cost of delivery to Salem just in gas alone, not to mention wear and tear on you and your car.

Area program offers fresh produce

Travel Salem has partnered with French Prairie Gardens' community-supported agriculture program.

The program allows busy people to get farm-fresh produce each week.

Participants receive 18 weeks of produce during the growing season. "Harvest Boxes" can be delivered or picked up at the farm.

Travel Salem will act as a drop-point for CSA members in the Salem area to pick up their goods at the Travel Cafe, 181 High St. NE .

Harvest Boxes containing eight to 12 fruits and vegetables, which vary throughout the season. Each box will contain about $20 in produce.

Recipients will get a newsletter with recipes and ideas for produce use. They are offered free admission to French Prairie Gardens' Strawberry Festival, set for June 18-21, and invited to cooking and canning classes.

Season membership runs June 3 to Sept. 30. Cost is $350 and delivery to the Travel Cafe costs an extra $50. For information or to sign up, visit www.FPGardens.com or call (503) 633-8445.

No comment

Wonderful idea -- let's grab it

Salem should implement ASAP. There are modified bikes that roar along 17th and other major ways through Salem that are so loud that the 2 a.m. train whistles seem like sweet whispers in comparison.

KENNEWICK, Wash. — If police in Kennewick have their way, the city in southeast Washington will be quieter this summer.

Officers are planning emphasis patrols over the coming month to crack down on modified vehicle exhaust systems and thumping car stereos.

The Tri-City Herald reports that officers will issue tickets with fines of $350 for loud stereos and exhaust systems.

City law in Kennewick prohibits car stereo systems from being played loud enough to be heard more than 50 feet from the vehicle. And car exhaust systems cannot be modified to amplify engine noise.

"Plastics"

One of the things we can look forward to once Peak Oil is inarguably (rather than, as now, arguably) in the past is the end of the belief that we can maintain any kind of decent living by educating children to do nothing more useful than chase pixels around on video screens and manufacture arguments to suit the desired outcome of the employer-du-jour: knowledge work, in other words.

The schools in Salem seem to have caught the "college for all" fever pretty hard, but we're still in the middle of farm country down here --- which means we're well-positioned for a return to educating kids in the most basic, most useful, and most important skill of all: that of feeding yourself with food you know to be good in such a way that you can continue to do so indefinitely (nice, saying all that without using the "S" word that is so trendy, eh?).

NYTimes Magazine has a great extended piece on someone who has managed to put aside his BS "educated" jobs for a real one, doing something useful, fixing motorcycles.

If I had one piece of advice to whisper to grads today --- and for the next umpteen years --- like the guy in "The Graduate," advising "Plastics," I would say this:

"Learn how to grow/raise your own food or how to be useful/indispensible to people who do."

I don't think there's a more important field of study than that in any pre-college curriculum.

Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller: review

Robert Rapier on Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the end of globalization by Jeff Rubin:

Jeff Rubin - the former chief economist at CIBC World Markets - has always struck me as someone who "gets it." I have seen him do a number of interviews, both on television and in print - and he consistently sounds the alarm on peak oil. He understands very well that cheap oil is the lifeblood of the global economy, yet this is an era that will soon come to an end. His new book - Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization - goes through the peak oil story in a way that I initially thought of as "Kunstleresque", but I changed my mind as I got deeper into the book.

Some will certainly describe Rubin as a 'doomer.' However, by the end of the book I had concluded that there are some significant distinctions between the overall message that Rubin is trying to convey and the message Jim Kunstler conveys in The Long Emergency. Maybe it's because The Long Emergency really slapped me out of complacency, but I recall being mildly shocked after reading Kunstler. I did not experience that same sense of shock while reading Rubin - but those who are only mildly familiar with peak oil may be.

Rubin's book looks excellent. Goes well with this excerpt of a post from an energy investment type:

As a longtime advocate for renewable energy and a former solar system designer, I have been to my share of "green" conferences. I have often heard the utterly unrealistic claims of renewable energy advocates, and listened to them vilify the oil industry. They seem to have as little appetite for the facts on fossil fuels as the fossil fuel industry has for objective evaluation of renewables.

So while I agree with the conference speakers who called for a balanced, non-demonizing policy debate, what I see is both sides—the green/climate change side and the fossil fuel side—retreating to their corners, throwing up walls of propaganda, and demonizing the other side.

The middle ground, where truth and progress reside, feels virtually empty.

I am left to ponder, once again, why that is. And once again I come to the conclusion that you can't make policy without politics. What we have here is simply political maneuvering with each side trying to gain an edge by overstating their positions, in hopes that when the dust settles, they'll be left holding something. It is most emphatically not a neutral and balanced dialogue.

In fact, there is no dialogue at all. Cleantech people go to cleantech conferences, and oil and gas industry people go to oil and gas conferences, and rarely do the two crowds mix. In the halls of Congress there is much shouting, but little listening. At the end of the day, it is the art of political compromise, not data, which drives policymaking.

The oil and gas industry remains mired in denial about the peak and decline of its products. Renewable advocates are still lost in a dream about quickly replacing fossil fuels with green energy and an infrastructure that runs on it. Climate change concernists continue to pin their hopes on visions that cannot possibly be realized in the time frames they need. No side trusts the other.

Ten Inconvenient Truths

Allow me then to stake out a bit of middle ground, based on what I believe to be the objective facts, in an effort to bring the parties together and perhaps make some actual progress on the policy front.

1. We have extracted nearly all of the world's easy, cheap oil and gas, and now we're getting down to the difficult, expensive stuff. The largest untapped resources that remain are in extreme places like deepwater and the Arctic, and marginal formations like shale. As a result, global oil production has for all intents and purposes peaked. Natural gas production will also peak in 10 to 15 years. Neither technology nor high prices will change that. Therefore we must begin to replace those fuels with renewables, and use what remains much more efficiently, with the expectation that most of the world's oil and gas will be gone by the end of this century.

2. Drilling for oil and gas drilling in the OCS and ANWR must and will be done; our need for those fuels is simply too great to pass them up. An additional 2-3 mbpd will put a dent in the roughly 12 mbpd we now import, but if we drill for it now, it won't come to market for 10 years or more. By that time, it probably won't even compensate for the depletion of conventional oil in North America, nor will it do much to reduce prices. But it will be crucially necessary, and producing it won't make an ugly mess of the environment.

3. Renewables are clearly the long-term answer, as is an all-electric infrastructure that runs on its clean power. However, it will likely take over 30 years for renewables to ramp up from a less than 2% share of primary energy today to 20% or more. They probably won't even be able to fill the gap created by the decline of fossil fuels. Oil and gas currently provide about 58% of the world's primary energy, and they will remain our primary fuels for a long time to come.

4. It will take many decades to reconfigure out transportation systems to run on electricity. It will take decades to fix our wasteful, leaky built environment so that it doesn't need as much energy to begin with. None of the solutions will come quickly or easily.

5. Neither renewables nor fossil fuels nor nuclear power alone can bring "energy independence." Indeed, if independence means isolating ourselves from the rest of the world's energy commerce, it might not even be desirable.

6. We must pursue all sources of energy immediately and aggressively if we hope to meet our future needs, and pitting one against another is counterproductive.

7. Nuclear power will not grow significantly in the next several decades, as nearly all of the existing reactors will need to be decommissioned within the next 20 years, and a new generation of reactors must be built to replace them. After we do that, a renaissance for next-generation nuclear energy may be a possibility but it will only happen after we have confronted the crises of peak oil and peak gas. It may produce no net reduction in emissions at all.

8. It is quite possible that even our best efforts on all fronts will not achieve the carbon emission targets we have set. Climate change must be confronted via a unified policy on emissions and energy supply, which is to say that in our zeal to control emissions, we take care not to squelch the production of the oil and gas that constitutes the majority of our energy supply, at least until we have something to replace it. To do so could have unintended and paradoxical consequences, like impeding the manufacture of renewable energy devices, and contributing to tight supply situations that once again cause fossil fuel prices to skyrocket and further damage the economy. Rather than emphasizing the uncertainty on climate change data, and fomenting fear about the cost of mitigation, all sides must come together in a depoliticized dialogue strictly based on neutral scientific analysis.

9. We should use accurate and unbiased models of the future growth and decline curves of all forms of energy for policymaking—models based on historical data, not faith. If the data says we're likely to recover another 1.2 trillion barrels of oil worldwide and no more, then we should not assume that future drilling and technological progress will somehow turn that into 3 trillion barrels of recoverable oil.

10. Carbon emissions will soon come with a price. Drilling the remaining prospects for oil and gas will be expensive: From the decision to invest until first oil is produced, it can take 10 years and $100 million dollars to drill the first well in a new deepwater resource, using rigs that cost $1 million a day to run, and the production platform can cost as much as $5 billion. Deploying thousands of wind turbines and square miles of solar will be expensive, slow, and difficult. Replacing millions of inefficient internal combustion engine vehicles with electric and plug-in hybrids will be expensive. Rebuilding the nation's rail system will be hugely expensive. In short, the good ol' days of cheap electricity and gasoline are likely gone forever, and all the solutions going forward will be expensive.

I share the industry's concern about energy illiteracy, but it cuts both ways. It's true that as long as oil and gas provide the majority of our energy supply, we must continue to invest and drill for it, and the industry must work hard to educate the public and policymakers about that. But to claim that limits on drilling are the only problem, or that renewables cannot provide the energy we need in time, exploits that illiteracy and deliberately confuses the debate.

The fact is that there are good people and good intentions on all sides of the issues, and none of them wants to destroy the environment or the economy.

As I see it, neither the fossil fuel industry nor renewable boosters are yet willing to come out of their corners and work with each other in an honest fashion to develop a truly viable path forward on energy. Until both sides put aside their exaggerated claims and partisan bickering, the public will remain confused about the true options and continue to use politics, not neutral data, as their guide. That cannot produce good policy, and it does all of us a grave disservice.

Such unhelpful contentiousness, denial, and cheating on the numbers is a luxury we can no longer afford. Our energy and climate change problems are real, they're urgent, and they're getting more so every day. It's time to set the tactics of the last war aside, wring politics out of the dialogue, and start grappling in an honest and direct way with real solutions. Nothing else will do.

Trying to Party like it's 1959

The Oregon Legislature has decided to look reality straight in the eye and deny . . . doing a "gut and stuff" on the Governor's proposed transportation bill that, for all its sins, at least made a cursory attempt to be something other than a highway bill.

Thus, a letter to Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) and Rep. Brian Clem (D-Salem) went like this:

Given Harry Truman's wisdom about holes, it's sad that HB 2001 has become a monstrous highway-dominated bill that proposes that we can keep pouring money down the rathole of paving over Oregon, even as oil prices begin their summer runup.

We need transportation package that puts people first, not cars, and that moves us towards a pedestrian, bike, and transit based system for moving people and a rail-based system for moving goods. Anything less is just pouring more money down the drain.

Better no transportation bill at all than this unwise and unsustainable effort to party like it's 1959.

An Oregon balanced-transportation advocate followed up with this:

All: In case you aren't up on the latest twists and turns with the Oregon Jobs and Transportation Act (JTA), or HB 2001, proposed "-A17" amendments to this bill were introduced yesterday. Read these here.

These 54 pages of proposed amendments appear to "gut" (delete) the previous language and "stuff" (replace) new language wholesale. But I have not been following the history of HB 2001 closely, and don't know how drastically the proposed amendments differ from what has been on the table.

What I do know is that Section 65 (on pages 49-53 of the proposed amendments) would earmark funding for a long list of state highway projects. Take a look for yourself to see where funding is proposed in your area. The list of earmarks includes:

• Newberg-Dundee Bypass, Phase I: $192 million
• State Highway 212 Sunrise Corridor, Phase I, Units 1, 2 and 3: $100 million
• Highway 62 Corridor Solution, Phase II: $100 million
• Interstate-5/Beltline Interchange, Units 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7: $80 million

and a couple dozen other less expensive highway projects

As 1000 Friends of Oregon writes in the alert:

Unfortunately, the transportation package, House Bill 2001, that recently emerged from behind closed doors has lost its balance – it has become a highways bill, dominated by an $840 million list of road building projects divorced from any unified transportation or economic development strategy to relieve freight bottlenecks or strengthen the state or local economies. It specifically earmarks scarce dollars to build massive highway projects that will increase sprawl, traffic, and increase transportation-generated greenhouse gasses.

Several projects funded by HB 2001 threaten the livability, sustainability, and greenhouse gas reduction goals that must be part of our transportation investments. This is not the balanced and sustainable transportation future that Oregonians want.

The time to make your voice heard is NOW. 1000 Friend of Oregon continues:

The newly-created Special Joint Committee on Transportation will consider HB 2001 tomorrow evening. This will be your only chance to give testimony before the legislature acts on the bill. Please testify at this hearing Thursday at 5 PM, in Hearing Room F at the State Capitol. For advice on testifying click here. Please let us know if you plan to attend: call Tara Sulzen at 503-497-1000 or email tara@friends.org.
Contact your state representative and senator TODAY.

Tell them to restore balance & sustainability to the transportation funding package.

Thanks for anything you can do,

P.S. Of course, many of us were encouraged by Governor Kulongoski's comments in December 2007 when he first launched his effort to pass a balanced, sustainable, environmentally-responsible transportation package. Our friends in 1000 Friends of Oregon, Oregon Environmental Council, Environment Oregon, Bicycle Transportation Alliance and other groups have been working with other stakeholders to try to reach agreement on just such a balanced package. Indeed, just two months ago, leaders of these groups linked arms with leaders from the Oregon Business Association, AAA Oregon/Idaho, the Port of Portland and the Oregon Trucking Association in a commentary in the Oregonian.

I believe I recently heard President Obama say, "The era of putting all our eggs in one basket, of investing the bulk of our transportation dollars in building unsustainable highways, is over." No wait, that was from a draft speech written by some hack. What President Obama actually said was, " Yes, we can."

Yes, we Oregonians—truckers, car drivers, transit riders, bicyclists and pedestrians—can come together and pass a balanced, sustainable and environmentally-response transportation package . . . with your help.

Contact your state representative and senator TODAY!

Grab your calendar: Summer free concerts in Salem

FREE CONCERTS! North Neighborhoods' Summer Concert Series

The Highland, Northgate, and NESCA Neighborhood Associations have a stellar lineup of acts for the 16th annual neighborhood concert series, featuring some of the best acts from the Willamette Valley and beyond. “You don’t have to live in the neighborhoods to enjoy the shows. Everyone is welcome,” said Nomi Pearce of the Highland Neighborhood Association. Three family-friendly neighborhood parks host free concerts throughout the summer:

Highland Park For more information call: 503-551-5228 or 503-371-0803
Tuesdays in July 6:30 PM-8:30 PM
2025 Broadway St. NE, Across from Highland School

July 7: Afincando
July 14: Scott Gallegos
July 21: Canyon Fever
July 28: Ellen Whyte

Northgate Park For more information call: 503-399-9975
Sundays in July & August 6:30 PM-8:30 PM
3260 Northgate (N. Entrance) • 3575 Fairhaven (S. Entrance)

July 19: Carrie Cunningham
July 26: Virtual Ground
August 2: EZ Eddy & The Jumpers
August 9: Coyote Creek

Hoover School Park For more information call: 503-409-4363
Saturdays in August & September 5:30 PM-7:30 PM
(1250 Savage Road NE)

August 22: Code Red
September 12: The Retrofits

Busy Week for Salem Citizens

Lots to do this week in the public arena:

1) Tuesday, May 26 -- Urban hens: Public Hearing by Salem City Council on the city staff's proposal to let a tiny slice of Salem residents keep hens. Many people will rightfully be opposed to the highlighted items below, which have the effect of making hens something that only a tiny few of the wealthiest Salem residents could legally do.

There are a lot of items on the agenda. . . . However, since this is a public hearing, it can start no later than 7:30. This means they will skip agenda items, if necessary, and jump to the public hearing, and then go back to the missed items after the public hearing ends. Don't assume it will start at 7:30 though, because the Mayor can decide to hold the public hearing first, especially if there are a lot of people (with children) in the audience. She has done this before. The public hearing could be lengthy, plan on about 3 hours.

Recommended Action: Staff recommends that City Council direct staff to return with a resolution to initiate an amendment to SRC 119 to accommodate the keeping of chickens with the following provisions: (a) No roosters to be allowed. (b) No more than three hens allowed on a property. (c) Minimum lot size to be 10,000 square feet. (d) Chicken enclosures to be permitted in side and rear yards only, with a minimum setback of twenty (20) feet to any property line. (e) Chickens must remain in enclosure. (f) Chicken keeping as a Special Use in the Residential Single-family (RS) zone only. (g) Chickens, their feed and waste, must be kept in a sanitary condition, so as not to emit odors, attract rodents and flies, or endanger public health.

Come to City Hall Tuesday night to tell the Council that they need to direct staff to come up with a proposal that, at minimum, mimics the Forest Grove rules that their planning commission just adopted.

2) Wednesday, May 27 - Neighborhood Services: The Salem Land Use Network is going to hear about folding neighborhood services into community development as part of the Salem austerity budget. This is an open meeting. The public is invited to attend.

SALEM LAND USE NETWORK MEETING
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 6:00 pm
City Building, 555 Liberty Street SE, Room 305

1. Discussion of Restructuring of Neighborhood Services under the Community Development Division. Vickie Hardin Woods, Brady Rogers, and Glenn Gross will discuss changes that will result from the restructuring and ask for Land Use Chairpersons' input.

3) Thursday, May 28 -- Cherriots: Hearing on the upcoming service change (essentially discontinuing feeder lines to concentrate more-frequent service on the busiest routes; proposes a Monday-Friday system only, and only runs until 7 p.m.):

F.	PUBLIC HEARING SERVICE REDESIGN OPTIONS
			This is the time on the agenda designated for testimony by anyone on proposed options to implement a major service redesign. Options for consideration:
			*	Five-day service with 15-minute frequency on major corridors and 30-minute service on connectors and neighborhoods
			*	Six-day service with 30-minute and 1 hour frequency on weekdays; and hourly service on Saturdays on arterials only
		G.	DELIBERATION OF PUBLIC HEARING
			Board members will be asked to give final guidance to staff on the System Redesign based on the public comments they received

DATE: Thursday, May 28, 2009

TIME: 6:30 PM

PLACE: Senate Hearing Room, 555 Court St. NE, Salem, Oregon.