Combat Climate Change While Boosting Your Health - Pacific Standard

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/learn-to-love-the-vegetable

With so much poverty hidden in plain sight, you have to ask: is this still America? | Brigid Delaney | Opinion | The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/21/with-so-much-poverty-hidden-in-plain-sight-you-have-to-ask-is-this-still-america

WIRED: Crowdfunding for the Public Good Is Evil

Crowdfunding is all the rage. But it shouldn't supplant funding for basic public services.

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/crowdfunding-is-evil/

Warehousing Elders on the Boise Site to the Detriment of All

Here's a terrible idea: let's move 50 nursing home beds from Silverton to the very heart of what should be the epicenter of vitality in Salem, a hub of urbanity.  In other words, let's move a bunch of people who aren't driving anywhere anyway into a premier location (while creating a commuting and parking demand for the staff).

How bout instead it be used for a mixed used live-work space for working people that would help restore Salem vitality and eliminate trips.

State approves nursing facility project in Salem

Jonathan Modie

The Oregon Health Authority has issued a proposed order to Salem LTC Properties, LLC, for the development of a new 52-bed skilled nursing facility to be located in Salem.

This project involves the relocation of 52 nursing facility beds from Marquis Silver Gardens (“Silver Gardens”) to the new facility. Upon completion of the project, Silver Gardens will close. Marquis Companies I, Inc., through a long-term operational lease agreement, will operate the new facility.

The new facility will be located at the southwest corner of Front and Commercial streets in Salem at a to-be-formalized tax lot, currently known as Parcel 2 of the North Block of the old Boise Cascade site. Silver Gardens is located in Silverton.

The order issued today is a proposed order. Any affected party who takes exception to the proposed order may request the OHA Public Health Division to hold an informal hearing. If no request for a hearing is received by March 21, 2016, the proposed order will automatically become final. For more information about this project, contact Jana Fussell, certificate of need coordinator, Public Health Division, 971-673-1108.

Under state certificate of need law, Salem LTC Properties, LLC, was required to seek state approval of this project because it involves the relocation of existing nursing facility beds to a new facility. The purpose of the law is to see that health services are adequately distributed in the state without unnecessary duplication of services or excessive cost to patients.

This proposed order grants the provider permission to proceed with the project as submitted. This project will be subject to further review for any changes to the physical plant, for state licensure, and for federal certification for Medicare and Medicaid if requested.

Finally, a use for the dead SJ printing plant -- Seattle developer would turn Oregonian pressroom facilities to housing, office space | OregonLive.com

Downtown housing, yes, Bridgeasaurus Boondogglus No!

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2016/03/seattle_developer_would_turn_o.html

“Global warming is now in overdrive”: We just hit a terrible climate milestone | Grist

http://grist.org/climate-energy/global-warming-is-now-in-overdrive-we-just-hit-a-terrible-climate-milestone/

When people talk about defunding NASA, cluelessness like this is why

Space exploration and planetary science is worthwhile serious business, but it doesn't require astronauts who are actually a hindrance to doing science in space.

Alas, in an era of runaway climate chaos, NASA is pumping scarce money into nonsense like this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/03/01/nasa-wants-to-build-a-jet-so-fast-you-can-fly-to-any-city-in-six-hours/?wpisrc=nl_rainbow

Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay

Great Idea for Oregon, especially for Salem Hospital

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/03/02/in-connecticut-new-bill-would-base-hospital-property-taxes-on-ceo-pay/

In Connecticut, New Bill Would Base Hospital Property Taxes on CEO Pay

February 29, 2016; Becker's Hospital Review

NPQ has been covering a number of trends as far as nonprofit hospitals are concerned. One of these is a questioning at the local and state levels about the taxability of these institutions. A number of measures have been proposed for determining this, including level of community benefit, degree to which the property is being used for profitmaking activity, and executive salaries. Hospital associations have been taking these challenges on as they come up, but it has recently been a little like a game of whack-a-mole.

For instance, the proposed cap. According to the Connecticut Post, "Dr. John Murphy, the CEO and president of the Western Connecticut Health Network, made at least $1.2 million in fiscal year 2013-14, according to federal tax filings. During the same time period, Bridgeport and Greenwich hospitals paid their top executives $1.4 million yearly; and Stamford paid its CEO $2.4 million, according to state documents." . . .

WORD: Racism is built into our criminal justice system (OPINION) | OregonLive.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/02/racism_is_built_into_our_crimi.html

Tell Congressman Kurt Schrader that fiscal responsibility starts at home!

Kurt Schrader likes to tout his "Blue Dog" persona, fiscal conservatism with social moderation. That means Kurt should be dead set against the gigantic waste represented by the Bridgeasaurus Boondogglus, the so-called "Third Bridge (to Bankruptcy)" that the Salem Chamber of Commerce lobby wants you to pay for, with

A local gas tax hike,
AND a vehicle license fee hike,
AND a property tax hike,
AND tolls

That's right, this monster is so absurdly wasteful that it would take ALL FOUR just to pay on the bonds for it. So instead of funding fixes first, the Chamber hopes to get you and your family on the hook to pay for an unneeded and way overpriced monstrosity of highway engineering left over from the 1950s.

Tell Rep. Schrader you're not buying it, and that he shouldn't either.