Maps, Aumsville, and Voting Structure: At the MPO

The Metropolitan Planning Organization meets on Tuesday the 22nd, and they are a little bogged down in some tedious map-making and line-drawing.

FAUB, UGB, City Limits in West Salem

One of the events the 2020 Census triggered was redrawing the Federal Aid Urban Boundary. 

On map-drawing

Unfortunately, different regulatory schemes demand slightly different maps, and the discontinuities look like they might add a lot of administrative sludge to the total amount of red tape: The Federal Aid Urban Boundary is not the same as the Metropolitan Planning Organization Boundary is not the same as the Urban Growth Boundary (which is not the same as city limits also):

the Federal Aid Urban Boundary (FAUB) is updated every ten years following the decennial census. The FAUB is intended to reflect the areas that are “urban” based on the Census Bureau’s methodology for defining urban areas.

The revised FAUB is used as part of the process to update the Federal Functional Classification (FCC) of roads. The FAUB informs the revisions to SKATS MPA (metropolitan planning area) boundary. However, it is not the same as the MPA boundary. The MPA is larger than the FAUB. The MPA boundary, along with the Air Quality Boundary, will be evaluated later to determine what revisions need to be made....

Mr. Jackson reminded the group that Oregon has Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) that other areas of the country do not have. The Census definitions of “urban” are applied nationwide.

Climate affects in today's headlines

The boundary lines matter because "Chair Cathy Clark noted that one of the benefits including specific areas in the FAUB is the ability to use federal urban funding for improvements on major roads."

Part of the boundary drawing involves including Marine Drive and extending more area to the Willamette River. 

Discussion [last month] continued related to the western edge of Salem’s UGB map. It was noted that the city of Salem city limits includes a small area that is outside of the Salem UGB. It is recommended to include areas that are included in the Salem city limits in the FAUB. Ray Jackson informed the group that SKATS staff are consulting with Salem and Polk County staff members regarding West Salem issues including Marine Drive.

One of the boundaries is far enough north and east to include the proposed (and rejected) alignment for the Salem River Crossing at McClane Island connecting to Wallace Road at Hope. They could have used the slough as the boundary instead. There's no expansion at the moment of the UGB there, but this is something to watch in case the expansion is "for Marine Drive" in air quotes.

Adding area below black line for Marine Drive
(comments in red added)

At the same time, maybe this is a way to seek additional funding for any purchase of the gravel quarry lands for habitat restoration and park expansion, which you may recall was discussed back in April.

Just something to watch.

There is also an odd area inside the Salem city limits but outside the UGB (blue rectangle in map at very top). That was interesting to note.

The boundary making is also related to the matter of adding Aumsville to the MPO. In that discussion Marion County had asked if the Cascade School District should now be a member of SKATS, like the Salem-Keizer School District is. It is not clear this was asked in good faith and might have been a ploy to muddy the waters regarding change, as it followed a request to keep things basically the same.

Cascade School District and SKATS

That school district doesn't appear to have much relation to the MPO area, however you construe it.

The committee will keep discussing how to add Aumsville, and that looks increasingly certain to get bogged down as rural interests try to retain disproportionate power and urban interests try to rebalance power. It is, after all, the Metropolitan Planning Organization, not the Rural Unincorporated Area and Small Town Planning Organization.

Not on the agenda, but related to schools and the MPO, the Safe Routes program is recruiting for a part-time assistant in the Salem-Keizer School District:

The SRTS Program Assistant reports to job sites, including schools and other special events within our region, to assist in SRTS instruction and activities for students in grades K-8. The SRTS Program Assistant works under the direction of the SRTS Coordinator and may act as lead instructor in the absence of the coordinator.  This is a part-time, non-exempt position.  Weekly hours will vary dependent on outreach activities and event opportunities and workload demands, as determined by the SRTS Coordinator. Maximum hours are expected to be ten (10) hours per week, Maximum hours are expected to be twenty (20) hours per week, although some weeks may have zero (0) hours. [See correction in comments]

And revising an item from last month: "Mike Jaffe made a correction to the Cordon/Kuebler item, the document [the draft plan for the corridor] is currently under internal review, not public review." 

Presumably they will make an announcement when the document goes out for public review. (The website still shows November 2022 as the last time it was updated.)

The MPO meets at noon on Tuesday the 22nd. The agenda and packet can be downloaded here.