City Council, April 10th - Airport Mania and Parking

Last Wednesday in a work session Council continued to think about an operations fee and new revenue. (See also Salem Reporter on that work session.) On Monday, they will be thinking about the airport and its subsidies.

Gerrymandered boundaries
(Yellow highlighting added)

On the agenda are two airport items. One is a gerrymander for the Fairview Industrial Urban Renewal Area in order to extract $1.8 million in URA funds for the airport remodeling.

The other is the air carrier agreement for subsidy over two five-year periods, also with the airline still redacted from the non-disclosure agreements.

In the event the Airline fails to realize the defined minimum revenue, it will invoice the City on a monthly basis for the shortfall. The City will utilize its federal grant funds and local matching funds to support the Airline and ensure that it is at least revenue-neutral for each flight operated to and from Salem up to a total amount of $1,200,000, including $50,000 for marketing.

(The agreement in a "financial performance guarantee" section lists LA, SF, Vegas, and Phoenix as destinations, and an airline buff might be able to figure out which one it is.)

Still no GHG analysis on the airport

We will see this as foolish in the years to come. It reverses progress on climate and emissions, and the opportunity cost is so many other more valuable things we might invest in or subsidize instead.

Same bluster and hype in February 2007
Not likely to be very different this time

And in the end, we are nearly certain to have another airline abandon Salem when the subsidies run out.

• See previous notes on the airport here.
  

Even the WSJ agrees, earlier this week

There is also a Public Hearing on removing parking mandates citywide as part of compliance with Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities. Hooray!

• See previous notes here on downtown parking, much of which applies to parking citywide.
  
• And of course Strong Towns has lots also on the general case, and on "5 Cities That Repealed Parking Minimums in 2022."
  
• A newer group, the Parking Reform Network, also has resources. 
• Our Strong Towns group recently pointed out this note at Streetsblog, "What Parking Reform Means for People With Disabilities."
• And a book, Parking and the City edited by Donald Shoup, who originated so many of the insights on parking.

Oregonian front page, Thursday

Also on the agenda is a proposal to apply for a Willamette Wildlife Mitigation Program grant through Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Bonnevile Power Administration. The city would like to use it to fund purchase of about 363 acres just north of Wallace Marine Park. The area is currently dominated by gravel and sand extraction, but nearing the end of its economically viable phase.

Staff have identified several potential advantages to City ownership, including the following:

• Restoration of riparian and wetland vegetation and creation and improvement of habitat for anadromous fish species and other wildlife across approximately 363 acres or 90 percent of the total site area;
• Development of a secondary municipal water source on the west side of the Willamette River, utilizing existing groundwater wells and water rights located on the site; and
• Development of an urban park on approximately 38 acres to provide for the current and future recreational needs of the Salem community.

(ballparks comment added)

With the prospect of drought, the way our industrial development keeps going out east toward the Santiam canyon and our water supply, and the known vast consumption of water by high-tech manufacturing processes, we should give more attention to our long term water supply and how we rank the priority of users. From here is it not so difficult to see a future in which industry gets the mountain water from the Santiam and residential Salemites have to make do with water from the Willamette. We should think about that in addition to the positive elements of riparian and wetland restoration and more park land.

Starting over on the final North Block parcel

Finally, the as Urban Renewal Agency the City proposes to purchase the last corner on the Boise project, formerly planned for a nursing home. The nursing home operator had purchased it for $2.7 million in 2015, and the City proposes to buy it for $3.5 million now. Presumably they'll flip it for a new redevelopment project, as they did with the lot where the Nishioka building is now and are currently doing with the UGM/Saffron site.

See recently here:

• "Nursing Home site for Sale" (2023)
  
• "Nursing Home at the Boise Project Revives, at Planning Commission April 6th" (2021)