1) because a library district appears to be dead and would only further compress property taxes, the solution for library and information services in Salem is a small tax on all internet, cable TV, and satellite (DishTV) services provided to city residents and businesses, with all the revenue dedicated to full funding for libraries and public information services.
Full funding = seven day a week library services (at least 78 hours weekly, 12 hours x 6 days + 1 day of at least six hours) with a library within walking and biking distance of all residents. Meaning one in W. Salem, one in North, one in NE, one in Central, and one mid-south, one far south. Also, every school library should receive funding to be opened as community satellite libraries open to the public in the evenings.
2) But NOT the current library.
The smart plan for the civic center:
A) kick out the library and divide the collection among the new leased branch libraries as above. Empty grocery stores are especially good, but other vacant storefronts are suitable too.
B) Retrofit the empty library complex and give it to the police. The seismic retrofit would go much more quickly with no tenant, and cost far less with no concerns about trying to maintain the open plan library that makes reinforcing columns a no-no.
C) Move police out and retrofit city hall with no new building construction. Take the lid off and center and stop. Done, for many millions less than the current plans.
You need to move fast-- the library has been gathering funds for a big upgrade to the children's area; it has been delayed, and that money should not be spent at all for an upgrade that will be ripped out, but should be instead used to defray the costs of converting the storefronts and expanding libraries into the whole community rather than having a half-starved main library and a wholly starved library branch within a mile of each other in downtown.
Where in the U.S. will you find the most "pleasant" days in a year?
"pleasant" here means the mean temperature was between (55° F and 75° F), the minimum temperature was above 45° F, the maximum temperature was below 85° F and there was no significant precipitation or snow depth.
It has been a winter of dreadful weather so far. I spent January flying back and forth from New York expecting to find a different set of conditions at the end of each leg. Whichever way I went, bitter cold greeted me at the end of the jet way and often with a coating of slick ice. It's hard not to dwell on anomalous and unpleasant weather. It got me wondering, though, where in the U.S. do you go if you want the most "pleasant" days in a year?
I decided to take a stab at what constitutes a "pleasant" day and then aggregate NOAA data for the last 23 years to figure out the regions of the United States with the most (and least) pleasant days in a typical year. The results, I think, are not that surprising and pretty much affirm the answer given off the cuff by many of my west coast friends when asked about the best places, "Southern California?" For the areas with the least pleasant days, I admit I would have guessed North Dakota. However, it's much of Montana that gets an average of a couple of weeks of pleasantness each year. I'm sure, though, they would shake their frost-bitten fingers at me and remind me that not everyone can take the overwhelming heat of 55° F. True, there is a bit of subjectivity to the range I selected. It's just that a lot of subjects share that same preference.
Posts
