Sad -- scratch Maurer from the list

The best candidate after all -- Susan Castillo. Image via Wikipedia

Sad. Ron Maurer appeared to be a good choice for State Superintendent of Instruction . . . but just got this note from Steve Novick:

. . . I would be remiss if I did not tell you that my old and good friend Susan Castillo, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, needs help defeating an opponent, Republican Representative Ron Maurer, who not only opposed Measures 66 and 67 -- thus showing a shocking willingness to see school funding cut - but opposed the Healthy Kids plan in the Legislature, which gave health insurance to tens of thousands of Oregon children. Ron Maurer is not well known, but he's still a threat - because in an anti-incumbent environment, people might just vote against the person they've heard of, especially if she doesn't have the resources to get her message out. In this officially nonpartisan race, with only two real candidates. it's important for you to know that whoever gets over 50% WINS THE WHOLE RACE IN MAY - there isn't going to be a November race.

Susan Castillo is not all that and a bag of chips, but Maurer loses any hope of being able to pass himself off as an advocate for schools and youth by opposing Measures 66 & 67; fighting to keep poor kids uninsured is just a little extra confirmation thrown in. Putting him in charge of schools would be like putting Ted Nugent in charge of meal planning for the Vegetarian Society. I'm sorry I posted anything encouraging people to consider him.

An opportunity for a REAL taste of history

Image by Sideshow Bruce via Flickr

Not far from here. Open daily, May-October.

Tell DEQ: Get Beyond Coal NOW -- Convert or shutdown Boardman by 2014 at the latest

Just one of the many beauties of nature put at risk by runaway climate chaos caused by burning coal at Boardman. Image via Wikipedia

From Friends of the Columbia Gorge:

PGE's coal-burning power plant near Boardman is the #1 stationary source of greenhouse gasses in Oregon and the largest source of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in Oregon. These pollutants are damaging ecosystems, impairing scenic views and endangering Native American cultural resources in the Columbia River Gorge.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is now reviewing a "Title V" operating permit that would allow PGE's coal plant in Boardman to continue spewing dangerous pollutants into the Columbia River Gorge and surrounding areas. This permit is an opportunity for DEQ to require full compliance with the Clean Air Act by requiring modern pollution control technology at PGE's Boardman.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

#1. WRITE THE DEQ TODAY. Ask that they require clean up or shut down of PGE's coal plant in Boardman. In the past, your voice has made a difference! Thousands of comments from the public forced the DEQ to require more aggressive mercury controls at Boardman. Click here to take action.

[If you're in Portland: #2. TELL THEM IN PERSON by attending a public meeting on Tuesday, May 4th. We are hoping to fill the room with passionate supporters who will wear "beyond coal" t-shirts, provided by the Sierra Club! Click here for details.]

What the Democrats in Congress Ought to Do

Image via Wikipedia

The GOP get absurd amounts of support from small business owners, considering how often the GOP ideas are actually just pro-big-corporate and anti-small-business.

But the image of the parties is there and needs fixing. To help with that, here's an idea I just sent to Congressman Kurt Schrader, who is on the Small Business subcommittee.

If the Democrats grab hold of this, they will have a great issue to run on in November, and the GOP will be totally unable to oppose it without looking completely unprincipled (I know, I know, but they don't like to have it made so obvious . . . )

Idea 1

This is a proposal for a small business financing improvement that could be a signature initiative for Democrats and help lots of people here in the jobless "recovery."

1) Allow anyone starting a new small business to tap their 401(k)/IRA/457/403b retirement funds to fund the small business or to serve as security for an SBA loan.

2) Allow the funds to be withdrawn or pledged as security for a small business development loan without tax penalty and with state and federal tax deferred until the business has been established for three years.

3) After three years, either (a) the money is replaced in the fund(s) and no tax consequence occurs; or (b) 20% of the total withdrawn has to be declared as regular income for the next five years.

That's the main idea and I can't see any downside to Democrats here whatsoever -- it's a pro-small business idea, it would help workers left unemployed by job cuts, and it doesn't require any federal outlay.

Idea 2

Allow anyone who is unemployed to make mortgage payments from their retirement accounts without the 10% penalties -- that is, they have to declare the distributions as regular income in the year that it's used, but people shouldn't have to pay a tax penalty for using retirement assets to preserve their ownership of their #1 retirement asset, their home.

Yay! An elected official actually looking further than a car-length ahead

Bob Krebs of the Cherriots (um, "Salem-Keizer Transit") board sends the encouraging word that the Cherriots board is thinking about the future and about providing some transportation options that don't demand liquid fuel.

Modern streetcars are again being considered as a means to upgrade transportation options in the Salem-Keizer area. A new citizens’ committee is being organized to look into how streetcars might best serve our community. The committee is a working group that will report to the Salem-Keizer Transit Board.

You are being contacted because you have served on an earlier Salem streetcar committee or have expressed an interest in streetcars. This new group will meet, 60 to 90 minutes, once or twice a month to work on this project. If you still have an interest in this concept and would like to participate, you would be welcomed as a member of this new committee.

Committee members will develop a work plan and goals for the project. We will be researching technology and costs to find what might work best in Salem-Keizer. Our focus will be on corridors where there already is travel demand and where the streetcar can provide needed additional capacity and increased transit usage. Creative ways to keep construction and operation costs affordable will be considered. One of our goals might be to develop a new streetcar system model that can be used for medium size American cities.

Many things have changed since the Central Salem Streetcar Feasibility Study was completed. There are now federal grants available to fund new streetcar systems. This could bring new dollars into our region without jeopardizing current transportation programs. A few months ago the first modern streetcar manufactured in the U.S. rolled out of the factory in Clackamas, Oregon.

I hope you find this proposal as exciting as I do. A streetcar system will end up producing many jobs for our community and the State of Oregon. It would give Salem-Keizer a more positive image for attracting new businesses and providing more employment opportunities. There would be a surge in transit oriented development and mobility improvements that support a viable local economy.

I invite you to join me as a member of this new Salem-Keizer Rapid Transit Streetcar Committee, planning for our future. There will be a lot of work, but lots of fun too.
To participate, just send me an e-mail (krebsr@cherriots.org) or call 503-588-2424 ext. 2328 to advise us that you would like to serve.

Streetcars tend to get oversold and caught up in developers' schemes, but the basic concept is outstanding for a place like Salem, where we have sprawled into a low-density place that makes us terribly vulnerable to the coming waves of oil-price peaks. An electric streetcar system, particularly one designed to integrate smoothly with bicycles, would be ideal.

How to integrate streetcars with bikes? Easy -- a separate "bike car" on each run with wide side-doors on both sides to allow people with bikes easy-on/easy-off so that they can continue their trips by bike, operating on car-free rights of way where possible (bikes, peds, streetcars, and emergency vehicles only).

Libraries are services, not places

The tireless and wondrous Salem historian Virginia Green brings us another great piece of Salem history today with this article on the traveling library in Oregon -- something that's going to have to come back into vogue in years to come (bringing books to the readers instead of expecting readers to travel to the building where the books live).

In years to come, as fuel prices make easy transport more and more a thing of the past --- and the costs of heating, cooling, lighting, and securing libraries continues to skyrocket --- we're going to have to re-think the whole idea of libraries as places where people find books. We're going to need to develop more of a community-based system, where the books don't live in conditions suitable for people in between readings. Instead, the books are housed in an environment good for books and people call for them and then the books travel, rather than the people.

There's still an essential role for librarians in this future -- less so for massive, expensive buildings though.

Just in time for the next fuel price runup, Salem dumps more money from a plane

Image by William Joyce via Flickr

Truly bizarre. Libraries, police, fire, parks -- all being cut. Hunger rising all over town. Foreclosures up, up, up. But the airport is going to be sacrosanct. Can somebody possibly explain to me why we're supposed to all be tightening our belts, except for the folks wealthy enough to own private planes and the airlines (see photo)?

Shameless hucksterism

We're downsizing and spring-cleaning like mad here at LOVESalem HQ and one of the things I'm trying to do is find homes for things -- have made numerous runs to bring stuff to Salem Friends of Felines (source of not just one but TWO of the world's most adorable cats) and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, but there's still some things that would be better suited elsewhere that we feel uncomfortable donating outright -- so we put them on Craigslist.

The groaning bookshelves in LOVESalem HQ have taken up so much floorspace that we're also hoping to find someone who wants this teak reading/laptop stand. The bar shown partially removed is an extra grip for thicker books/thin laptops. The height and angle are both adjustable. Good for reading with a cat in your lap (both hands on the kitty is the preferred rule around here).

If you know a home, small business or nonprofit that needs a great printer/fax/copier/scanner, here's one pretty darn cheap. The ink refills are spendy from Canon, less so from Costco, but Rapid Refill on Liberty sells these refills now too, much, much cheaper. This has been a great printer but it's just way more machine (including duplexing) than we use and it ought to go somewhere that needs this much machine.

If you're interested in either, follow the links to the Salem Craigslist ads.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled dyspeptic rants.

Salem Sustainability Grant: Opportunity compacted and trashed

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.

Money/energy saving workshop

The clothesline -- one of the fastest-payback energy-saving devices of all. Image by Professor Bop via Flickr

This is probably a couple hours well-spent for anyone who hasn't had a complete energy audit done on their home (owned or not -- renters have energy bills too!) in the last five years -- technology is changing fast.

Salem and Keizer residents are invited to a free home energy workshop from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday at 3123 Broadway NE, just north of Salem Parkway.

The workshop, about how to save money and reduce a home's carbon footprint, comes with a brunch buffet and a copy of the book "Cut Your Energy Bills Now" by Bruce Harley.

Participants will learn more about basic building science and energy use in the home; local and regional energy sources and potential impacts; low-cost and no-cost tips to save energy; impacts of lifestyle choices; and actions that can improve the safety, comfort and efficiency of a home.

It is sponsored by NW Natural and Energy Trust of Oregon.

You must register with Bruce Anderson at (503) 371-0580 or bea@nwnatural.com or online at energytrust.org under events and education.