City Council, August 13th - The Bike Plan

Here it is. The bike plan. Bike and Walk Salem goes before Council tonight.

There's really nothing more important for Salem bicycling. Please email your Councilor before 5pm at Citycouncil@cityofsalem.net or come to the meeting at 6:30pm in Council Chambers at City Hall.

Also, a new iteration of the Simpson Hills Fairview Refinement Plan. (Since the focus here is on the bike plan, I haven't been able to look at the Fairview plan this time.)

Parking

Appointments to the Downtown Parking Task Force and the official creation of the same:

City of Salem, Mayor Anna Peterson
City of Salem, Councilor Chuck Bennett
Kasey Wheeler, Manager JCPenney
Dana Vugteveen, Manager, Salem Center Mall
Marion County Commissioner, Sam Brentano
Brian King, DAS, State of Oregon
Alan Schechtman, Owner Sid's Furniture
Two positions remain unconfirmed

$650,000 in Urban Renewal Funds for improvements to the downtown parking garages.

Other Stuff

A bunch of annexations.

$100,000 in City funds and $150,000 in Urban Renewal funds to DKS Associates for the Downtown Mobility Study. Two things about this are interesting: Its total cost, which is larger than Bike and Walk Salem, I believe, and the two funding sources. Hopefully this is not a dodge to conceal the total cost.

The Mayor proposes to create a Mayor's Task Force on Agriculture. Maybe it'll just be a bunch of talk, but at the same time it is undeniable that while Salem has a smaller population and less aggregate income than Portland, it is geographically more central to farms in the valley. Canneries are closing, but maybe beer, wine, fine dining, and other affiliated sectors can be built out. On the surface it sounds like a logical idea. Hopefully bike tourism will be a friendly, even if secondary, consideration here.